2008-09 Annual Report - Institute for Global Leadership

2008-09 Annual Report 

2009-10 Annual Report, Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University 1

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2009-10 Annual Report, Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University

Institute for Global Leadership 

2008-09 Annual Report 


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Table of Contents 

Mission Statement - 6 

IGL Programs - 7 

2008-09 Highlights - 11 

EPIIC - 12 

Global Research, Internships, and Conferences - 29 

Inquiry - 44 

Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Awards - 51 

TILIP - 56 

INSPIRE - 60 

BUILD - 62 

NIMEP - 69 

EXPOSURE - 78 

Engineers without Borders - 85 

Tufts Energy Forum - 93 

ALLIES - 96 

Synaptic Scholars - 102 

Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Public Diplomacy Initiative - 112 

Empower - 113 

International Resilience Project - 119 

PPRI - 123 

RESPE - 126 

Sample Individual Events - 129 

Publications - 130 

Collaborations - 136 

New Initiatives - 140 

Awards and Next Steps for Students - 144 

Statement on the Impact of the Financial Crisis on the Institute - 148 

Benefactors - 150 

External Advisory Board - 152 


MISSION STATEMENT 

The mission of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University is to prepare new generations of critical thinkers 

for effective and ethical leadership, ready to act as global citizens in addressing the world’s most pressing problems. 

In 2005, IGL was designated as a signature, university cross-school program with the objective of enhancing the interdisciplinary 

quality and engaged nature of a Tufts education and serving as an incubator of innovative ways to 

help students understand and engage difficult and compelling global issues. Due to its unique approaches and ability 

to create unusual partnerships and juxtapositions, IGL is at the forefront of efforts that encourage “thinking beyond 

boundaries and acting across borders.” 

To meet these challenges, the Institute emphasizes rigorous academic preparation and experiential learning. Students 

learn through intensive engagement in classes, global research, internships, workshops, simulations and international 

symposia - all involving national and international students and leaders from the public and private sectors. 

These activities stress critical and normative thinking, written and oral communication skills, problem solving, and 

an interdisciplinary approach to learning. Students produce tangible outcomes to their studies through their research 

projects, the international forums and other significant initiatives. The experience helps stimulate intellectual curiosity 

and build individual self-confidence and independence, while at the same time developing analytical and practical 

leadership and decision-making skills. 

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PROGRAMS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL LEADERSHIP 

(in chronological order) 

• Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) (1985-) 

The cornerstone of the Institute, EPIIC is a rigorous, carefully integrated multidisciplinary program on a global theme 

that is open to students of all majors and years. Since its inception at Tufts in 1985, EPIIC has been challenging students, 

as well as policymakers and the public at large, to think critically about questions of pivotal importance to the 

world. Its main components are: a yearlong colloquium; research projects; an international symposium; professional 

workshops; and public service initiatives. Past topics have included: International Terrorism (1986); The West Bank 

and Gaza Strip (1987); Transformations in the Global Economy (1993); Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (1994); The 

Future of Democracy (1997); Global Inequities (2002); The Role of the U.S. in the World (2004); Oil and Water (2005); 

and The Politics of Fear (2006). The 2008-09 topic was Global Cities. 

• Global Research, Projects, and Internships (1986-) 

Students are encouraged to conduct original, policy-oriented research and projects that allow them to test their theories 

and assumptions on the ground. Since 1986, more than 750 students have conducted research or participated 

in an international internship in more than 80 countries. These projects often develop into significant projects and 

senior honors theses. One project culminated in an the creation of an NGO in northern Uganda, Collaborative Transitions 

Africa; another, which looked at the outreach process from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former 

Yugoslavia, became the model for the outreach in Sierra Leone. 

• Inquiry (1992-) 

Working with public and private schools in more than seven states, Inquiry is one of the university’s largest and most 

diverse public service initiatives. It provides a unique opportunity for high school students to participate in an intellectual 

and challenging yearlong program, culminating in a role-playing simulation on an international issue. Tufts 

students act as mentors for the high school students. In 18 years, more than 4,000 high school students and 650 Tufts 

students have participated. 

• Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Lecture Series (1993-) 

This series, and its accompanying award, honors the legacy of former Tufts University President and Chancellor Jean 

Mayer by bringing distinguished individuals to campus who combine scholarship and public service and who are 

dedicated to helping students solve some of the world’s pressing challenges. Past recipients include Hon. Martti Ahtisaari, 

Hon. Anson Chan, Bill Drayton, Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Sylvia Earle, Shirin Ebadi, Murray Gell-Mann, Hon. Jose 

Ramos Horta, Sunita Narain, Sen. Sam Nunn, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Gwyn Prins, Mary Robinson, 

Amartya Sen, Wole Soyinka, Ronald Takaki, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 

• Tufts Initiative for Leadership and International Perspective (1997-) 

In 1998, Tufts University, in cooperation with Peking University (Beijing), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and 

The University of Hong Kong, began this unique leadership program. Continuing its work with China, TILIP was 

re-conceptualized in 2008 to expand its reach to such countries as Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Israel, 

Rwanda, Singapore, South Africa, and South Korea – which all have sent student delegations to the IGL as part of the 

IGL’s commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. 


• INSPIRE (Institute Scholars and Practitioners in Residence) (1999-) 

This program brings scholars and practitioners to campus for public lectures, classroom lectures and research and 

career advising. Recent participants have included Jack Blum, Senior Counsel for Special Projects for Finance Sector 

Compliance Advisers Limited and an expert on controlling government corruption, international financial crime, 

money laundering, international tax havens and drug trafficking; Peter Droege, the Asia-Pacific Chair of the World 

Council for Renewable Energy and Director of Solar City for the International Energy Agency; Sanjoy Hazarika, a 

member of India’s National Security Advisory Board; Padraig O’Malley, the John Joseph Moakley chair of Peace and 

Reconciliation at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; 

and Mort Rosenblum, Associated Press correspondent for more than 30 years and the former chief editor of the 

International Herald Tribune. 

• Voices from the Field (2001-) 

On hiatus this past year, for the previous years the IGL brought back to campus mid-career alumni (the Voices) who 

are presently working in the fields of nation building, complex humanitarian emergencies, human rights, U.N. peacekeeping, 

refugee assistance, preventative diplomacy, conflict resolution, and development assistance. They engage in 

several days of intense round-table conversation and a full day of undergraduate advising. 

• Building Understanding through International Learning and Development (B.U.I.L.D.) (2002-) 

For its first six years, BUILD Nicaragua participants spent a semester learning about international development, 

cross-cultural exchange, the history and politics of Nicaragua and about the needs of the rural community of Siuna, 

Nicaragua before spending their winter break working in the community. In 2008, BUILD decided to switch its work 

in Nicaragua to Guatemala, where the student group now works with the cooperative Santa Anita La Union. BUILD 

also runs a spring semester, student-taught course on sustainable development. This is a project in collaboration with 

the Tisch College for Citizenship and Public Service. In 2009, BUILD was chosen as the Tufts recipient of the Davis 

Foundation 100 Projects for Peace. 

• New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP) (2003-) 

NIMEP is a non-polemical student think-tank and outreach initiative aimed at finding progressive solutions to the 

historic conflicts in the Middle East. In 2005, NIMEP published the first edition of its journal, NIMEP Insights. The 

journal featured student research papers from NIMEP trips to Israel and the West Bank and to Egypt, as well as the 

IGL’s 2004 trip to Iran. NIMEP’s most recent trips were to Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and a return to Israel and the West 

Bank. NIMEP also initiated the Soliya course, now offered through the Political Science Department. Soliya is a webbased 

videoconferencing course, in which small groups of university students from the US and predominantly Muslim 

countries in the Middle East engage in intensive dialogue about the relationship between the US and the Arab and 

Muslim World. 

• EXPOSURE (2004-) 

EXPOSURE is a program dedicated to mentoring and developing young, knowledgeable photojournalists and documentarians 

and the advancement of human rights through the facilitation, distribution, and instruction of photojournalism 

and documentary studies. Working with the VII Photo Agency, de.MO, a design and publishing company, 

and the Aftermath Project, EXPOSURE has also mounted a number of professional exhibitions and offered students 

the opportunity to participate in professional photography workshops in Argentina, Bali, Boston, Cambodia, Kashmir, 

Kosovo, Philadelphia, and Uganda. EXPOSURE has published two books through de.MO based on the Kosovo and 

Argentina workshops. 

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• Iran Dialogue Initiative (IDI) (2004-) 

IDI’s mission is to facilitate educational dialogue and exchange between Tufts University students and students at the 

School for International Relations (SIR) in Tehran. This is a non-polemical and non-political initiative. In 2004, IDI 

organized the first official U.S. university visit to Iran since the 1979 revolution, where ten Tufts students spent two 

weeks traveling through Iran and meeting with their peers at SIR as well as at Mofid, a religious university in Qom. 

Given the ongoing political tensions of recent years, this program is on hold. 

• Engineers Without Borders (EWB) (2005-) 

A collaboration with the School of Engineering, the mission of the Tufts Chapter of Engineers Without Borders is to 

design sustainable development projects for communities around the world and to engage students, faculty and the 

campus in the process. The group has worked on projects in Tibet, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Haiti. Unique to the 

Tufts chapter is its emphasis on a collaboration between engineering and arts and sciences students. 

• Tufts Energy Forum (formerly the Energy Security Initiative) (2005-) 

TEF was developed by students who participated in the 2005 EPIIC Oil and Water colloquium. It is an effort to educate 

the campus about global energy supply and demand, alternative energy sources, and the geopolitical consequences 

of the world’s quest for energy sources. Research trips have been conducted in Belgium, California, Colorado, Denmark, 

Germany, India, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. TEF hosts an annual symposium on the campus, 

partnering with a broad range of organizations. Along with a name change this year, TEF also helped establish a sister 

program at Peking University, the Peking University International Student Energy Initiative. 

• ALLIES (Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services) (2006-) 

The objective of ALLIES is to expand and integrate the ongoing relationship between the Institute for Global Leadership 

and the military’s educational institutions. ALLIES fosters dialogue, encourages joint research opportunities, 

creates activities that bring together students at private liberal universities and future military officers, and educates 

about the role of the U.S. military at home and abroad. 

• Synaptic Scholars (2006-) 

The Synaptic Scholars program is designed to encourage and enable students interested in creative, intellectual exploration 

to realize their potential in intensive, interdisciplinary settings. The program creates a framework in which 

intellectual juxtapositions, critical thinking and self-directed explorations are fully realized. Synaptic Scholars is a 

leadership program, meant to provide a forum for students to take risks, pursue passions, and challenge assumptions 

in an intimate, supportive and collaborative environment. It is designed to cultivate a strong sense of accountability 

and responsibility, while encouraging scholars to enrich the University’s intellectual life and programming. 

• Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Public Diplomacy Initiative (2006-) 

The Bendetson Public Diplomacy Initiative is an effort to bring key global policymakers and officials to Tufts to share 

their experiences and perspectives with students. It also brings these policymakers and officials together to discuss 

their shared experiences, such as the program on “Iraq: Moving Forward” in 2007, which explored next steps in Iraq 

with participants from Iraq, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Guatemala. 

• National Security and Civil Liberties Program (2006-) 

On hiatus this year, this program is an opportunity for students to experience and understand the fundamental relationship 

between civil rights and national security concerns. Closely allied with ALLIES, it brings together students 


from the Tufts campus and from the US military academies to address controversial issues such as Guantanamo, warrantless 

wiretaps, and the extent of Executive Privilege. This program collaborates with the Law Library of the Library 

of Congress and the Washington Law School of American University. This program is cosponsored by the Experimental 

College and Debate Club at Tufts. 

• International Resilience Program (2007-) 

This program brings together applied interdisciplinary research, and cross-sector policy and practice analysis to bear 

on teaching, advising and mentorship of professional, graduate, and undergraduate members of the Tufts community 

in the classroom and outside of the classroom through research-focused activities. It is directed by Astier M. 

Almedom, a Fellow of the Institute and Professor of Practice in Humanitarian Policy and Global Public Health at The 

Fletcher School. 

• EMPOWER (2007-) 

The IGL’s newest initiative focuses on social entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation. Bringing together a global 

network of non-governmental organizations, such as ACCION, Kiva and Schwab, EMPOWER offers students opportunities 

for research and internships across the world. Intended to be a multidisciplinary initiative, topics can range from 

microfinance to education to water sanitation. 

• POVERTY AND POWER RESEARCH INITIATIVE (2007-) 

PPRI is a policy-oriented student research initiative that investigates the hypothesis that poverty is often a product of 

distorted national governance structures where decision- making powers are unequally distributed within a society. 

• RESPE (Research and Engagement Supporting Poverty Elimination): Haiti (2007-) 

RESPE: Ayiti is an interdisciplinary program aimed at assisting the rural community of Balan in Haiti to develop itself. 

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2008-09 Highlights 

• The Institute sent students to conduct research in Afghanistan, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican 

Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Israel, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, 

Rwanda, South Africa, Syria, Uganda 

• EPIIC hosted its 24th Norris and Margery Bendetson International Symposium on “Cities: Forging an Urban Future” 

• BUILD won one of the the Davis Foundation’s 100 Projects for Peace which allows it to buy 20,000 coffee plants, 

hire a local NGO for agricultural training, and build a computer center for the Santa Anita La Union cooperative in 

Guatemala 

• The Institute was responsible for bringing two Shepard Fairey murals to campus, one in Medford and one in Boston 

• TILIP brought 38 students from eight countries to the EPIIC symposium 

• EXPOSURE ran two photojournalism workshops, one in Uganda with Sara Terry and the Aftermath Project and one 

in Boston, with Tufts alumnus and independent journalist Jim MacMillan 

• Synaptic Scholars graduated its first class of 11 students 

• The IGL cosponsored two new courses through the Experimental College, one led by the Project on Justice in Times 

of Transition on leadership in conflict resolution and one led by INSPIRE Fellow James Henry on the global financial 

crisis 

• RESPE conducts a groundbreaking, community-led health assessment in Balan, Haiti 

• Tufts Energy Forum works with students from Peking University in China to establish the Peking University International 

Student Energy Initiative 

• Empower supports more than 60 students in internships and research initiatives in its second year 

• The Institute establishes a partnership with GlobalPost, providing students with the opportunity to publish their 

research with the online international news outlet 

• The IGL lays the groundwork for a new intiative in Southern Sudan with the collaboration of Humanity United 

• The Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award is presented to nine distinguished individuals, including The Honorable 

Martti Ahtisaari, who would then win the Nobel Peace Prize 

• Inquiry piloted a weeklong high school research trip to Shanghai 

• ALLIES established ongoing internships for undergraduates with the Peace Keeping and Stability Operations Institute 

(PKSOI) at the US Army War College 


EDUCATION FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY AND INTERNATIONAL CITIZENSHIP (EPIIC) 

With 2007 seeing the first time in history that more of the world’s population is living in urban areas than in rural 

areas, EPIIC’s 2008-09 theme was “Global Cities”. 

Cities have variously been understood as the cultivators of civilization and the generators of prosperity, as well as the 

source of corruption and immorality. In fiction and films, they capture our imagination, running the gamut from 

cultural wastelands to future utopias. 

EPIIC, this year, was an international and interdisciplinary investigation into the future of cities, utilizing a global 

network of policy makers, academic experts, architects, engineers and urban practitioners; as well as working with 

city mayors and internationally renowned specialists with practical and theoretical expertise in fields ranging from 

governance and urban crime to housing, city design, and transport. 

The rise and fall of great cities has been part of civilization’s history, from Athens to Ur, from Alexandria to Nineveh, 

from Rome to Tenochtitlan. What can be learned from their legacies? Cities of the future are being created in the 

United Arab Emirates and Brazil, what can be learned from their promise? 

The 21st century is the urban century. In 1800, only three percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Now, 

more than 50 percent of the population does. This rural to urban migration, along with its implications and consequences, 

from the future of agriculture to the sustainability of water and energy supplies, were a critical focus of the 

colloquium. In conjunction with this migration is the overall explosion of the world’s population. In 1950, there were 

83 cities with populations exceeding one million. In 2008, there were 468. China’s urban explosion, the largest in 

history, has given rise to 102 cities with more than a million residents. 

How are cities and countries contending with this acceleration? What insights can be developed into spatial and social 

developments in cities confronting economic and demographic growth? What will be the global socio-economic, political 

and security challenges of such rapid urbanization? What are the tensions brought about by the globalization 

of modern cities with both its global connectedness and local disconnectedness? 

In 1995 there were 14 megacities; in 2015 there will be 21. In 2000, there were already 18 hyper cities, such as New 

York City, Mexico City, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, and Karachi. The Greater Tokyo Area has a population of 35 million, which 

is greater than the entire population of Canada, but condensed into 5,200 square miles, as compared to Canada’s 3.8 

million square miles. What specific challenges do these intensely populated areas pose for governance, infrastructure, 

economic prosperity, and sustainability? 

EPIIC looked at cities as centers of great culture and great architecture; as command centers for the global economy; 

as energized flow centers of commodities, information and people; and also as lures for internal and external migration, 

with the attendant dilemmas of congestion, environmental degradation, poverty, disease, homelessness, and 

crime. 

The students considered how globalization has shaped today’s cities and what impact it will have in the future. In 

all of this growth, who is being left behind? From the promise of Las Vegas and Dubai to the slums of Mumbai and 

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Santiago, the colloquium explored cities as dramatic centers for both extreme affluence and chronic poverty. The 

urban agenda is a critical global issue. What strategies might lead to the development of prosperous, innovative 

multi-cultural sustainable cities that would enhance the quality of life for all citizens? 

This year’s class enrolled 40 students from eight countries: Canada, China, England, India, Singapore, Taiwan, and 

Turkey. Their majors include American Studies, Anthropology, Architectural Studies, Art History, Child Development, 

Community Health, Economics, Engineering, English, Environmental Studies, International Relations, Music, Political 

Science, Russian History, Sociology, and Urban Studies. The languages they speak include Bengali, Chinese, French, 

German, Hebrew, Hindi, Latin, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. 

Just two weeks into the course, the class traveled for its annual 

weekend immersion to Outward Bound’s Newry, Maine 

center. The guest speaker was Dr. Janice Perlman (photo 

below). Dr. Perlman is the Founder and President of The 

Mega-Cities Project, Inc., a global non-profit organization 

(with consultative status to UN ECOSOC) whose mission is: 

“to shorten the lag time between ideas and implementation”—particularly 

at the intersection of income generation, 

environmental re-generation and participatory democracy. 

Prior to founding the Mega-Cities Project, Dr. Perlman was 

a tenured Professor in the Department 

of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Outside of academia, 

Dr. Perlman served as Coordinator of The Inter-Agency Task Force on Neighborhoods 

of President Carter’s National Urban Policy; Executive Director of Strategic Planning for the 

New York City Partnership; and Director of Science, Technology and Public Policy at the New 

York Academy of Sciences. Her publications include: The Myth of Marginality: Urban Politics 

and Poverty in Rio de Janeiro and her forthcoming book, FAVELA: The Dynamics of Urban 

Poverty in Rio de Janeiro, 1968-2005. 

Senior Emily Freedman reflected on the Outward Bound experience. 

As a senior, I must admit I was skeptical. Over the last three years, I have been on my share of 

these retreats with various organizations, some more effectively run than others, and have found 

that they leave something to be desired. Generally, I have returned to Tufts with a new illness 

and a new obligation to an organization I feel only somewhat engaged in, all the while feeling 

as though I have wasted the majority of my weekend which I really needed to recharge my batteries for the next week. 

Driving four and a half hours, though, added a new dimension to my cynicism: what could be so wonderful that it would 

merit such a long drive for such a short weekend? The relative lack of upperclassmen in the EPIIC group was furthering 

my discomfort with my decision to apply for EPIIC and the appropriateness of the class for me: Was senior year the wrong 

time to do this? Will this class be more appropriately aimed at the underclassmen who will have time at Tufts to capitalize 

on the knowledge they will acquire and ultimately reap more benefits through a sustained connection with the IGL? 

Up until the last minute, I was second-guessing EPIIC, but was also feeling like I had gotten myself too far in to get out 

now. So with unbridled uncertainty I packed and headed down to the IGL the morning of our Outward Bound experi- 


ence, and in the end, can say that the experience 

debunked all of my apprehensions. 

For me, the real turning point was the autobiographies 

period the first night. The 

raw honesty that some members of the 

class displayed made me recognize the 

unique nature of this program: the sheer 

amount of work and thoroughness of the 

class is one that would only appeal to a 

certain type of person, and for whatever 

reason, that legitimated for me each member 

of the class. I was thinking about my 

friends at school and other people I have 

had classes with in the past, and could see a fundamental 

difference in the interactions with this group. It was a safe 

place to be honest because everyone was listening; everybody 

wanted to know each other’s experiences because people were 

thirsty for new information and had passions they were not 

trying to stifle to lead a more mainstreamed college life. It 

was a room full of the people I have spent my last three years 

at Tufts looking for, and had ultimately replaced with a shallower 

alternative. 

Hearing everybody’s paths to where they currently are 

left me feeling excited but also inadequate. It left me 

with questions about the world around me, and made 

me appreciate what I have gotten the chance to do, 

made me eager to do what others have done, made 

me want to learn about previously unknown realities 

of the world, and most importantly, made me excited 

to build a team with the rest of the EPIIC community. 

Having Janice there added a lot for me. I have wondered 

frequently since hearing about EPIIC why so 

many experts in their fields were willing to come to 

Tufts to lecture this class and to be part of the symposium. 

Her excitement made me realize that it is 

because they have faith in the future of the world by engaging our generation: Janice’s unbelievable excitement about 

the course and engaging us in the Megacities Project had me beginning to feel that way, too. I kept hearing my advisor 

for Child Development, Richard Lerner, saying that the way to get youth actively engaged is to give them responsibility. 

Her willingness to work with us, and the reciprocal enthusiasm for her program, encouraged me. I kept feeling surges of 

excitement during the program, excited for the opportunities that were waiting, intermittent with disappointment that 

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I have so little time left at Tufts to really 

make a significant impact. I kept feeling 

like I wanted to drop the rest of my classes 

and just get involved, do everything the IGL 

had to offer, because at the end of the day, 

this was what I would remember. 

Ultimately, the weekend for me was like 

coming up for air. I had become so disinterested 

in my academic pursuit due to my 

disappointment in many of my classes at 

Tufts, and basically had decided that I have 

been paying for nothing more than my degree 

because I was coming out of Tufts with 

little more than I entered with. This program, and my excitement fostered for it, have re-peaked my intellectual interests 

and reengaged me in learning something new. It has made me excited for what I will learn, the challenges I will face, 

and what more could realistically come out of this. 

Colloquium speakers this year included: 

• Julian Agyeman, Chair, Urban and Environmental 

Planning Department, Tufts University (top right) 

• Astier Almedom, Professor of Practice in Humanitarian 

Policy and Global Public Health, The Fletcher 

School, Tufts University; Fellow, Institute for Global 

Leadership 

• Edith Balbach, Chair, Community Health Program, Tufts 

University 

• David Cartagena, Senior Streetworker, Institute for the 

Study and Practice of Nonviolence 

• Ryan Center, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tufts 

University and EPIIC (‘98) alumnus 

• Elyse Cherry, Chief Executive Officer of Boston Community Capital; President of 

Boston Community Venture Fund 

• Abebe Dinku, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia 

• Teny Gross, Executive Director, Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence and 

EPIIC (‘92) alumnus 

• Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Research Psychiatrist, New York State Psychiatric Institute; 

Author, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and 

What We Can Do About It (bottom right) 

• Anna Hardman, Lecturer in Economics, Tufts University 

• Steven Hirsch, Professor of Classics, Tufts University 

• Justin Hollander, Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University 


• Robert R. Kiley is the former commissioner of transport 

for London (top,) left 

• William Moomaw, Professor of International 

Environmental Policy and Director of the Center for 

International Environment and Resource Policy, 

The Fletcher School, Tufts University 

• Padraig O’Malley, John Joseph Moakley Chair of Peace and 

Reconciliation, John W. McCormack Graduate 

School of Policy Studies, University of 

Massachusetts, Boston 

• Kent E. Portney, Professor of Political Science, Tufts 

University 

• Wade Rathke, Chief Organizer, Community Organizations 

International (formally Acorn International), Founder 

and Chief Organizer of ACORN (right, bottom) 

• Charlie Sennott, Co-Founder, GlobalPost.com; Former Foreign 

Correspondent, The Boston Globe 

• Jacob Silberberg, Photojournalist (above, top right) 

• Gregg Steinberg, President, International Profit Associates; Founder, HybriCore 

• James G. Stockard, Jr., Curator, Loeb Fellowship Program, Harvard Graduate School of 

Design, principal for over 25 years with the Cambridge-based consulting firm Stockard 

& Engler & Brigham (above, middle right) 

• Salim Tamari, Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies (above, middle left) 

• Heyam Tereffe, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Technology and Head of the Department 

of Architecture and Urban Planning, Addis Ababa University 

• Lawrence Vale, Professor of Urban Design and Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute for Technology 

• Richard Williams, Professor of Mental Health Strategy, University of Glamorgan 

In October, as part of a developing collaboration with Addis Ababa University (AAU) in 

Ethiopia and Hybricore in Chicago, the IGL hosted two senior members of the Faculty 

of Technology from AAU courtesy of Gregg Steinberg, the founder of Hybricore. 

Dr. Abebe Dinku (photo left) and Dr. Heyaw Tereffe spent a week at the IGL, learning 

about the Institute and Tufts University, lecturing in the EPIIC class on “Global Cities” 

and several engineering classes, and meeting with officials, professors and students 

at Tufts. Dr. Abebe is the Dean of the Faculty of Technology and a Professor of Civil 

Engineering at AAU, where he is also engaged in the university’s infrastructure development 

and in a variety of other engineering and building projects in Addis Ababa. He is the author of more than 30 

scientific publications. Dr. Heyaw is the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Technology on the Southern Campus and has 

served as the Head of the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is an architect by training and he has 

chaired the assessment of several designs for public and private buildings in Addis Ababa and major regional cities. 

While here, they met with Vincent Manno, Associate Provost and Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Charlie Heap, 

Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute’s U.S. Center and a senior scientist in SEI’s Climate and Energy Pro- 

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gram; Christopher Swan, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Anna Hardman, 

Lecturer, Economics Department; Peter Walker, Director of the Feinstein International Center and Rosenberg Professor 

of Nutrition and Human Security; Lewis Edgers, Associate Engineering Dean for Undergraduate Curriculum 

Development; Rob Hanneman, Director of Tufts Gordon Institute; Shafiqul Islam, Associate Dean of Engineering for 

Research; and members of Tufts’ Chapter of Engineers without Borders. 

They also gave a public lecture on “Urbanization And Construction In Ethiopia: Challenges Facing The World’s Least 

Urbanized Country.” 

The Institute, with the support of Steinberg, then sent six Tufts (five of who were in EPIIC) students – a mix of liberal 

arts and engineering -- to Addis Ababa during winter break to research on the challenges the country is facing in terms 

of urbanization, with an emphasis on housing (please see more in Global Research). 

Two Fletcher students were the EPIIC Teaching Assistants this year, helping to guide the students through their intensive 

reading. 

Dahlia Shaham was born and raised in Israel and was a graduate student at the Fletcher School, where she studied 

the political economy of the Middle East and international business relations. She received her LLB in Law and Latin 

American Studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was accepted to the Israeli Bar in 2004. Throughout 

her studies, she had worked as an Arabic translator, an English teacher and a research assistant on issues of international 

law and minority rights. During 2006-2007, she worked as an analyst and then an analyst team leader with the 

Reut Institute in Tel Aviv, providing policy support services to the Israeli government. She is fascinated by the structuring 

processes of inter-group relations in every context, but is particularly involved in the relations between Jews and 

Arabs and in the Middle East. Dahlia has traveled extensively across Europe and East Asia. Dahlia was selected as the 

Class Day speaker during graduation and she also gave an address on behalf of Fletcher’s 75th anniversary. 

Ester Serra Luque was born and raised in Barcelona, Spain and was a graduate student at The Fletcher School, where 

she focused on Gender, Human Security and Conflict Resolution. Prior to coming to Fletcher, she was a freelance 

journalist for several news outlets in Barcelona and reported from the Palestinian Territories for Spanish National 

Public Radio. She also was a research assistant for the Kosova Foundation for Open Society in Kosovo and an Intern 

on the Reparations Team for the International Center for Transitional Justice. 

In addition to their coursework, the students also had to participate on two committees; this year they chose from 

Program (Symposium), Inquiry, Multimedia, Film Series, Special Events, Logistics, and Public Relations. 

The program committee benefitted from the reflections of 

Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow and Adele Fleet 

Bacow, the President of Community Partners Consultants 

Inc., as well as of Barry Bluestone, the Director of the Dukakis 

Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern 

University, and Eliot Sclar, Director of the Center for Sustainable 

Urban Development at the Columbia Earth Institute. 


The Special Events Committee organized a range of 

outreach programs to the campus, including “Parking 

Day.” The goal of “Parking Day,” which was partially 

inspired by a similar New York City initiative, was to 

spotlight the growing issues of land policy, lack of affordable 

housing, land values, and median incomes in 

cities. When people own cars, they assume that they 

not only own the rights to the car, but to the parking 

space that they utilize. While municipal governments 

seem to encourage this behavior, they seem to set a 

double-standard in relation to those who cannot afford 

housing and instead resort to squatter settlements. 

This is underscored by shrinking incomes in relation to 

rising property values and the subsequent increase in evictions 

of slum-dwellers around the globe. The committee 

wanted to present these issues to the campus by setting up 

and manning tents at different locations on campus, putting 

up large signs stating statistics about land values in highlypopulated 

cities and even housing and parking prices at 

Tufts. 

The Norris and Margery Bendetson 24th EPIIC International Symposium 

All of the students’ work 

during the first semester 

laid the foundation for 

EPIIC’s public programming 

in the second semester. 

The EPIIC international 

symposium on “Cities: 

Forging an Urban Future” 

gathered more than 50 

practitioners, policymakers, 

academics and journalists 

to the Tufts campus 

EPIIC Symposium Panel: Financial Crisis: A New Era of Economic Leadership 

for five-days of discussion 

and debate on issues including 

the impact of the Financial Crisis on cities, Realizing Urban Democracy, Terror and Cities in the 21st Century, 

Vulnerable Cities and Lessons from New Orleans, the Challenge of Urban Crime and Violence, the Decline and Revitalization 

of cities, Informal Settlements and the Politics of a Shared Future, the City without Oil, and Leadership and 

Innovation. 

18 


Photos: Top (l to r) Senior Peter Radosevich, IGL External Advisory Board Member Fred Berger, Symposium audience; Bottom (l to r) Dr. Barry 

Bluestone, EPIIC students Yun Luo and Ashish Malhotra preparing, question and answer period 

Speakers included: 

• Julian Agyeman, Professor and Chair, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University; Cofounder 

and Former Chair, Black Environment Network 

• Junaid Ahmad, Sector Manager, Urban and Water Unit, World Bank, South Asia 

• Julian Baskin, Senior Urban Specialist, Cities Alliance 

• Barry Bluestone, Professor of Political Economy, Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Dean of the 

School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy, Northeastern University 

• David Cartagena, Streetworker, Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence 

• Elyse Cherry, Chief Executive Officer, Boston Community Capital; President, Boston Community Venture Fund; 

Member, IGL External Advisory Board 

• Aldo Civico, Director, Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University; Former Senior Adviser to 

Leoluca Orlando, former Mayor of Palermo, Sicily, Italy 

• David Dapice, Associate Professor of Economics, Tufts University; Economist, Vietnam Program, Ash Institute for 

Democratic Governance and Innovation, Kennedy School of Politics, Harvard University; Chair, IGL Faculty 

Advisory Committee 

• Sergio Fajardo, Former Mayor, Medellin, Colombia 

• Teny Gross, Executive Director, Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence 

• William Moomaw, Professor of International Environmental Policy and Director of the Center for International 

Environment and Resource Policy, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University 

• Gwyn Prins, Director, Mackinder Programme for the Study of Long Wave Events, London School of Economics 

• Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University; Author, The Global City and Cities in 

a World Economy; Former Director, UNESCO five-year project on sustainable human settlement 


• Elliot Sclar, Professor of Urban Planning and International Affairs, Columbia University; Director of the Center for 

Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia Earth Institute; Former Co-Coordinator, Taskforce on Improving 

the Lives of Slum Dwellers, United Nations Millennium Project 

• Lawrence Vale, Professor of Urban Design and Planning, MIT; Coeditor, The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Re 

cover from Disaster; Author, Architecture, Power and National Identity 

• Patrick Webb, Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, 

Tufts University 

• Maj. John Williams USMC (ret.), Deputy Director, Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, US Naval Academy; 

numerous operational deployments including Des¬ert Shield and Desert Storm, the 2006 evacuation of 

American citizens from S. Lebanon, Iraq 

• Yona Yahav, Mayor, Haifa, Israel 

The small-group discussions continue to be a strong point of the symposium, offering panelists and audience members 

an opportunity to discuss issue more in-depth. 

The Rebuilding of New Orleans -- Wade Rathke 

• How does the unique makeup of the population 

and physical layout of New Orleans impact its 

attempts to recover? Without the 9th ward and 

areas like it, would the city already be back to 

normal? 

• What is the meaning of full recovery for the city 

of New Orleans? When will it be recognized as fully 

recovered? 

• What would be the silver lining to the tragedy of 

Hurricane Katrina? Have the racial inequalities it 

made clear effected policy change? 

• Should New Orleans be rebuilt in its current location? How can it do so while ensuring its future safety? 

• Who has taken charge of the city’s recovery? Why was Mayor Negin unable to step up following the 

hurricane, and why was he re-elected? What does this indicate about the city’s resilience? 

Contending with Urban Crime and Violence: International Intervention Strategies -- David Cartagena, Teny Gross, 

Irvin Roy Kinnes 

• What socioeconomic and contextual factors breed 

crime and violence in urban environments? 

• What intervention strategies seem to be most 

effective? What types of people and programs can 

get through to at-risk inner-city youth? 

• Does independent third party mediation between 

gangs deliver positive results and do communities 

benefit from them? 

• What can be done to give youth productive ways 

to contribute to self and society, and thus deter 

violent behavior? 

20 


• Can you change individuals without changing their environments? 

• How do the actions of non-governmental organizations impact gang organization? 

• How does gang activity in South Africa differ from gang activity in the United States? To what extent is gang 

activity context-based, and how can effective strategies best be implemented in a new environment? 

The Challenge of Slums and Informal Settlements -- Janice Perlman, Elliott Sclar 

• While often considered problematic and threatening to the 

urban order, can slums be considered a “solution” to the issue 

of massive rural-urban migration? 

• What types of innovations have come from slum dwellers 

themselves and how can the barriers between the formal and 

informal city be bridged to share innovations that improve the 

whole urban experience? 

• What are the benefits and difficulties that come with slum 

upgrading? Should informal settlements be formalized? If so, 

how can this become a reality? 

• What progress has been made on Target 11 of the Millennium Development Goals to “Improve the Lives of 

100 Million Slum Dwellers by 2020”? Is improving lives for 100 million enough? How can such projects be 

carried out amidst the current financial crisis? 

Masdar: City of No Waste? -- Peter Droege 

• How ‘green’ will the city really be? Is the act of building a city from scratch 

mutually exclusive with the ideal of ‘being green’? 

• Is it worth $22 billion to build a new city? 

• What from Masdar’s design can be applied to other cities? What can we learn 

from this process? Is Masdar an isolated project, or can the lessons of its creation 

be applied more broadly? 

• What are some of the most revolutionary innovations being developed for 

this city? 

Sustainable Cities: Governance and Political Will -- Kent Portney 

• What challenges are municipal governments faced in 

terms of furthering sustainability policies? Are they issues of 

funding or of political will? 

• If not all cities share the same environmental issues, how 

does one go about comparing multiple cities in regards to 

sustainability action? With problems varying by geographic 

region, what indicators cut across the varying needs? 

• Is a democratic governmental system required for equitable 

sustainability policies? 

• Is political will the only stagnate of sustainability? 


Moving Millions: Urban Transportation Systems -- Anna Hardman, Robert Kiley 

• How can policymakers balance resources allocated 

to urban streets and highways (and on-street parking 

with the needs of the public transportation system? 

What is the place of taxes, parking charges and limits 

to auto access in urban transport policy? 

• Do congestion charges have a future in the United 

States? Why did the political will exist to pass the 

‘congestion charge’ in London? Why was the first 

attempt at introducing a congestion charge in New York 

defeated and what might change political attitudes to such an innovation there in the future? 

• What attributes of a city’s geography or population are relevant in determining what types of 

transportation – public or private -- will be most effective and efficient? 

• What, if any, obligation do transport authorities have to use and provide incentives to use green 

technologies? What ‘green’ technologies are being used in or are available for public and private urban 

transportation today? What innovations are on the horizon? 

• When are major public investment projects appropriate? For instance, a decade later, was Boston’s ‘big 

dig’ worth it? What about the metro systems in Cairo and Athens? Would an express bus system like that 

in Curitiba (Brazil) be cheaper and just as effective? 

Misconstrued Repercussions: Discrepant Effects of the ‘U.S. War on Drugs’ and Drugs Themselves on Urban Life -- Edith 

Balbach 

• What is the impact of drugs on urban communities? How much control can drug lords assume, and what 

effect does this have on urban governance? 

• How context-based are the effects of drugs on communities? Can solutions that work in one place be 

replicated elsewhere? 

• What is the ‘U.S. War on Drugs?’ Why is it failing? What are its domestic and international repercussions? 

• Why are the effects of drugs on communities often seen as the same as the effects of the ‘War on Drugs’ 

on communities? What are the repercussions of this misunderstanding? 

Modern Military Strategy in an Urban Environment – Maj Eric Bjorklund USARMY, Lt Col Ben Paganelli USAF, Maj John 

Williams USMC (ret) 

• What unique challenges does urbanization impose on military forces? 

• What should the relationship between a city’s civilian population and occupying military forces be? 

• Can classic counterinsurgency doctrine, rooted in the rural model of insurgency, be applied in cities? 

• What approaches to urban warfare—employed by the US or others—have been successful? What 

approaches have been unsuccessful? 

• What instruments of military force are most important and effective in urban warfare? 

• How has our military adapted to the urban fight? How should it continue to evolve? 

• What direction will urban warfare take in the future? Do you think future urban combat will reflect 

recent military experiences in places like Fallujah, Baghdad, Beirut, Gaza, and others? 

22 


Innovative Engineering and Municipal Challenges -- Bernard Amadei 

• How was the idea of ‘Engineers Without Borders’ conceived? Does the scaled up model differ from how it 

was imagined at inception? What changes to the model, if any, should be made? 

• Much debate exists over whether bringing people from the ‘developed world’ into the ‘developing world’ 

to do projects does more harm than good, as the sustainability of the projects once the ‘experts’ leave is 

questionable. Certainly Engineers without Borders has taken this into account and developed measures 

to ensure that their projects are able to be sustained. What measures have been taken by the organization? 

Do all international development organizations take this into account in developing programs? 

• As the planet continues to urbanize, should Engineers Without Borders focus on cities, as these projects will 

make larger impacts in the future? How do urban EWB projects differ from rural ones? 

• How does Engineers Without Borders decide on ‘the greatest need’ in a community? To what extent are 

local people consulted and considered? 

• Would resources be better spent investing in engineering programs in developing countries instead of on 

travel expenses for student EWB groups? If students in these countries could learn how to do some of these 

programs, wouldn’t the impact be far greater? 

• What potential is there for collaboration between student groups and Engineers Without Borders? How can 

students get involved? How does service-learning impact a student’s development? 

Immigration in the Urban Age -- Jennifer Burtner, Sebastian Chaskel, Warren Goldstein-Gelb, María A. Landaverde 

• How are immigrants impacting urban centers in the Greater Boston area? 

• How are cities and communities meeting, or not meeting, the needs of the immigrant population? 

• How are the changing population demographics changing cities’ identities and culture? 

In a new formal addition to this year’s symposium, the Special Events committee actively sought to integrate the arts 

into programming prior to the symposium and into the symposium itself. Working with Boston’s Institute for Contemporary 

Art, Tufts’ Medford and Boston campuses were selected by artist Shepard Fairey’s team to be the site of two of 

his murals in conjunction with the ICA exhibition. The students assisted with the Medford mural that was mounted 

outside the campus center (below). 


The symposium itself featured a student video and multimedia presentations, slam poetry, and singing. Included 

were: 

EPIIC Student Video: “Cities Unveiled” 

by Katrina Pennington A’11, EPIIC 2008-09 Colloquium 

EXPOSURE Boston Workshop Presentation 

As part of Exposure, the Institute for Global Leadership’s program for Photojournalism, Documentary Studies, and 

Human Rights, eight students spent their past winter break in Boston reporting on a range of urban issues. Under the 

mentorship of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Jim MacMillan, an IGL INSPIRE Fellow, students photographed 

and wrote on issues critical to the urban experience in Boston that in many cases have gone unnoticed. 

Slam Poetry 

“Art Just Permanent Enough To Be Beautiful Before The World Remembers How Insignificant We Are” and “Notes from 

a Chicago Boy” by Jesse Welch a first year student and slam poet from Chicago 

“A Tribute to Mumbai” 

by Nethra Madurai’10 and Saumini Shah’09 

“We’re One” 

by S Factor (left), Tufts’ newest all male a capella group 

“City on a Hill” 

performed by Eleni Arapoglou’11 from Athens, Greece and 

accompanied by Shahan Nercessian, 23, an M.S./PhD. candidate 

and research assistant at Tufts University in the Department 

of Electrical & Computer Engineering 

Some of the outcomes of this year’s EPIIC Colloquium and Symposium are: 

Bernard Amedai was interested in the Solar for Gaza/Sderot incubator project that the IGL is exploring with former 

INSPIRE Fellow and this year panelist Peter Droege. Dr. Amadei invited EPIIC student Cody Valdes to the Engineers 

Without Borders conference in Cyprus to further discuss the project. Haifa, Israel Mayor Yona Yohav, a recipient of 

the Mayer Award this year, is also interested in the solar project. 

Junaid Ahmad from the World Bank agreed to help provide speakers for EPIIC 2009-10 look at “Politics, Culture and 

Conflict in South Asia.” The World Bank will sponsor INSPIRE Fellow Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman to be at Tufts for a 

month in the fall. Dr. Rachman is an academic, economist and policy maker from Bangladesh who was most recently 

credited with a leading role in the safe return of Bangladesh to electoral democracy. He is the founder of the Power 

and Participation Research Center in Dhaka. 

24 


Dr. Ahmad was also impressed with the students and the IGL’s civil-military initiative, ALLIES, and offered $5,000 to 

sponsor two students to conduct research on the return of Bangladesh’s military to the barracks and the restoration 

of democracy. 

Dr. Ahmad also plans to collaborate with Tufts Engineering Professor Shafiqul Islam on AquaPedia initiative, which 

explores the link between cholera, climate change and water in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is part of a 

National Institute for Humanities challenge grant. 

Wade Rathke became the ACORN (now Community Organizations International) adviser for the IGL’s Empower program 

and provided an internship for a student in India. 

Irvin Kinnes, one of the graduate students from South Africa, and Tufts professor Julian Agyeman plan to collaborate 

on a spatial justice project in South Africa. 

Dr. Janice Perlman is working with sophomore EPIIC student Alison Coffey in planning her year abroad in Brazil. After 

spending the fall semester at the Pontificia Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, Alison plans to take the spring semester 

off to intern with an NGO working in Rio’s poorer communities and carry out research on the ways in which community-based 

education programs are changing dynamics of citizen participation in development and urban planning. 

Dr. Barry Bluestone impressed by Tufts student and EPIIC alumna Jessica Herrmann’s presentation on Boston’s mortgage 

crisis and offered her a research position with his center. 

•••• 

Some reflections on the symposium, and the year, from the students: 

Cody Valdes’12 

…My last point I would like to make is that this symposium turned out to be the greatest possible culmination of the 

growth and friendship we have seen in this year’s EPIIC class to date. We have had more fun together as “college kids” 

doing what college kids do in their spare time in the past month than in the five months before it. Since the symposium 

began, there hasn’t been a single weekend when at least half of us haven’t gone out together for a social gathering. 

Many of us are now freely inviting each other to come visit in their hometowns over the summer and organizing various 

internships to do together, on top of the significant group effort that was made to reclaim the Shepard Fairy wall. The 

bonds we created amongst ourselves during the symposium will last as long as any that were created between us and 

panelists or the international students, and likely more. Overall, the symposium blew me away, and I would be remiss not 

to take full advantage of the EPIIC program at least once more during my time at Tufts. People say “why would you ever 

put yourself through all of that?,” and my gut reaction is “why would you not, considering that you only get four years 

to extract everything you can from Tufts before it’s over, and lest you forget that your parents are paying an enormous 

amount of money to send you here.” I’m not sure I could justify the expense of Tufts University as easily if it weren’t for 

the IGL and the opportunities I have had to find myself through its incredible programs. 


Dwijo Goswami’11 

…One of the most common refrains one heard from the various panelists during the EPIIC symposium this year was 

how much better some of the questions asked by the students were than the answers they received. It’s hard to disagree, 

but not only because these were critical questions that had no easy answers. Looking back, prior to symposium it was 

difficult for me to sit and process all that I had learned about cities in class last semester. Only after hearing some of the 

wonderfully thought out questions my fellow students of the colloquium asked the panelists did it finally strike me how 

much we had learned collectively over the past few months. 

It’s no secret that I found myself incredibly frustrated with my high school education, and that despite the fact that 

I had always planned on completing my college education in New Delhi, I am incredibly grateful for the college and 

education system I inadvertently landed up in. Before Tufts, I almost never appreciated the formal process of educating 

myself. The academic setting back home was so rigid, conformist and intellectually limited, that I really did believe that 

the actual process of educating oneself was something best left to my life experiences and intellectual interests outside 

formal institutions. 

The college system in America, found in institutions in like Tufts however, completely challenged that belief. EPIIC, in my 

opinion, served as my capstone learning experience for what educational institutes are capable of - if they are willing 

to challenge every notional boundary that exists in their minds. Most importantly, what I took away from EPIIC as an 

educational instrument was that to truly educate oneself on any subject – global cities or otherwise - it is impossible to 

do justice to it, unless one follows a multi-disciplinary approach. In fact, if there is one complaint I will still lodge against 

my college education here at Tufts after EPIIC, it is that there simply aren’t enough courses topics taught here that are 

approached from the perspective of different disciplines. 

Katrina Pennington’11 

…However, if I was in awe of any presenters during the symposium, it was those speakers who seemed less a part of 

academia and more directly involved in their passionate projects. I do wholeheartedly believe that all the articles and 

theories that get published do further the development and dedication to the solution of the challenges, but I think there 

arrives a moment when I believe that discourse only goes so far. I feel that some of this impatience results from my own 

immaturity, the desire to skip all the work that must be an investment, and jump directly to the action. In some ways 

it just seems so much more “concrete.” (But can a skyscraper be built without blueprints?) When Teny Gross and David 

Cartagena once more shared their experiences, the day-to-day challenges of working for peace in the street gangs of 

Providence, it struck and inspired me more than Saskia Sassen’s discussion of the supranational characteristics of cities. 

Bernard Amadei’s comments truly struck me, when he advocated the tangible results of Engineers Without Borders. I 

got the sense that sometimes, when dialogue and rhetoric get tied up, we need people like Amadei to find creative ways 

to make change. But obviously, when I step back, I see that we need both ends of the macro vs. micro scale, and both 

academic discourse and daily practical application: we need the theorists to make models that help us generalize the 

individual cases, and we need people working down on the urban battlefield putting these changes into place. We need 

the architects, the engineers, and the contracting team. Their combination makes the city finally take shape. 

Adrienne Frieden’09 

What was in fact most exciting for me was that the panel I enjoyed the most was one of the ones I really could have cared 

less about throughout the planning process. Despite its poor early morning time slot I thought it was one of the most 

dynamic and interesting panels we had. Every person on that panel was a powerhouse who added their own unique 

26 


perspectives and stories, which linked so perfectly to give a fascinating viewpoint of urban violence manifestations worldwide. 

From Sergio Fajardo’s wide political perspective on drug violence in cities to David’s personal accounts, it made me 

really think and care strongly about this ubiquitous problem. Some of the ideas that Teny discussed with respect to the 

government role in taking control of cities to decrease the violence reflects many of Fajardo’s ideas and methods for the 

turn around of Medellin. This panel just worked so fluidly, each participant adding a new layer to the mix, yet tying it 

all into grander themes of direct action. 

It was these ideas for direct action and innovation that I had really hoped would rise out of the symposium, for it to 

transcend an academic exercise and really spark creativity and ideas on how we should specifically be intervening in our 

cities. I think the mayors really were the heart of this, grounding these elaborate ideals in practical concepts that can 

and have been successfully employed. Their panel really was the fantastic piece that really melded the whole symposium 

together and reminded us all of our central focus and goal to look at new ways of forging and forming our urban future. 

Adam White’09 

So what were some of the big takeaways for me– first I enjoyed the mayor’s panel a lot. For the obvious reasons of course, 

but I think this panel touched on an interesting theme that I think summarized this year’s symposium (and in fact both 

years) and maybe even life. 

The panel (left) touched specifically on the 

role of public service. This point is the tip 

of the iceberg of what I am discussing. One 

story, (from Mayor Plusquellic) was about 

moving an old woman to improve a neighborhood, 

and her initial complaint and 

eventual acceptance and apology. This was 

the discussion about the public good and 

on one level the need of public servants to 

perhaps overlook the good for individual in 

favor of the public good. Beyond this, it 

gets to the idea of the individual, or maybe 

what I am beginning to understand as the 

collective, “evil.” The bad things that happen 

in the world with no one mastermind, but just everyone looking the other way or doing their little trivial part. I think 

the key is that it is about the idea of an individual. How does that expression go, no man is an island. A lot of people 

don’t understand that. 

The mayors and many of the other panels all got at this concept – just sustainability, or the city for all – we need to create 

and live in cities that promote diversity and inclusion. People don’t understand that they might be happy if they don’t 

live in a walled suburb. I think this shift in understanding is more than a life’s work – but whatever I do, and however I 

do it -- I think this is the core problem I want to work on – at least within one vein of it. 


On a sad note, IGL speaker and friend David Cartagena, a senior streetworker 

with the Institute for the Study and Practice of Non-violence in Providence, RI, 

was killed in a car accident in May. Nathaniel Teichman, who had interviewed 

him for a Discourse article, wrote: 

The loss of such a man as David is unthinkably tragic, both for those he loved 

and inspired and for those he never got a chance to influence. The Tufts community 

was fortunate enough to hear David speak about youth and the urban 

poor during the 2008 EPIIC Global Poverty and Inequality Symposium and again 

in 2009 when he addressed the challenges of urban crime and violence at EPIIC’s 

“Cities: Forging an Urban Future” symposium. 

David was tireless in his pursuit of peace. He spread his infectious enthusiasm 

and unflinching commitment to nonviolence from Providence, Rhode Island to 

Portland, Oregon, reaching all the way to Antigua, Guatemala. Charming and 

intelligent, David was equally comfortable helping gang members turn their lives around, a path he himself followed, 

or conversing with heads of state as he did during the Project on Justice in Times of Transition’s “Leaders of the Present” 

Conference. 

Today there is a little less joy, a little less love, and a little less courage for us as a community to draw on. David was an 

extraordinary man who rose from difficult circumstances to make a difference for everyone around him. His impact as 

a peacemaker, as a leader, as a father, as a friend and as a person will never be forgotten and together we must strive 

to keep his legacy alive. David often spoke about the need to reach out and touch others with love. David lived these 

words, advocating for kids that had no one else to help and encourage them. Now, we as a community must not allow 

this responsibility to go unfulfilled. 

The IGL will be working with the Teny Gross and the Institute for the Study and Practice of Non-violence to support a 

program in David’s memory. 

28 


GLOBAL RESEARCH, INTERNSHIPS AND CONFERENCES 

This year, the IGL sponsored more than 80 students to conduct individual research, engage in internships, and participate 

in workshops and conferences in more than 25 countries. Below are samples of some of the research that the 

students pursued. 

Josh Friedmann ‘11 

Danish Smart Grid Policy 

Over spring recess, Josh traveled to Copenhagen to research the emergence of some of the world’s most progressive 

incentives for electric vehicle and smart grid adoption. Denmark seems poised to have one of the world’s first electric 

fleets, with a corresponding “smart” grid that will employ the cars’ batteries for electricity storage. This will enable 

more efficient use of intermittent renewable energy production, reducing both emissions and energy costs. The Danish 

Parliament, earlier this year, made these technologies commercially viable by exempting electric vehicles from the 

state’s 185 percent tax on new vehicles. Through interviews with involved members of parliament, professors, and 

industry professionals, Josh examined the role of non-governmental organizations in the promotion of these policies. 

In contrast with his hypothesis that he would find strong networks of well-organized environmental interest groups, 

Josh found almost no NGOs involved in encouraging adoption of these policies. Instead, he determined that a combination 

of direct and indirect pressures from the international community, opposition parties, other successful 

first-mover companies, and public utilities encouraged the Denmark’s conservative government coalition to embrace 

progressive environmental policies such as tax exemption. 

Max Leiserson ‘11 and Neha Agrawal ‘11 

Power Crisis in South Africa 

In early January 2008, South Africa suffered a period of load shedding in its power supply that continued for nearly 

four months. However, even with a successful load shedding schedule, the economic ramifications of this power 

crisis have been enormous. South Africa’s currency, the rand, lost 12 percent against the dollar between January and 

February of 2008 alone, and South Africa’s GDP grew by only 2.1 percent in the first quarter of 2008, a paltry rate in 

comparison to the 5.3 percent growth of the fourth quarter in 2007. What makes South Africa’s energy crisis a topic 

of political interest, in addition to economic, is that South Africa has had the cheapest amortized cost of electricity in 

the world since the mid-1990s. They were investigating how the government made the mistake of trying to privatize 

the electricity market when South Africa had the cheapest electricity in the world. 

Mae-ling J. Lokko ‘10 

Uzuri Landscape Project 

Uzuri is a landscape architecture project inspired by contemporary Ghanaian artists 

and constructed alongside Ghanaian architects and students from the SOS Hermann 

Gmeiner International College, Ghana. Working under the guidance of the leading 

Ghanaian architect Josephine Manalo, the design is highly sensitive to the local 

environment and climate, promotes the use of local materials and advocates for 

sustainable design. The fieldwork and experience aided Mae-ling’s Synaptic Scholars 

research on how contemporary architecture in Accra is ‘negotiating’ the globalization 

of its changing building industry. The project drew support from high school 

student volunteers, who revived an environmental initiative begun years ago. 


Yun Luo ‘12 

Biodiversity in Shanghai 

Many factors, including social, political and natural, contribute to Shanghai’s unique human-altered environment, 

where biodiversity is commonly either ignored or misunderstood. By interviewing some professors and studying 

three typical downtown green areas, Yun was able to look into these factors, explore the significant values of a better 

biodiversity for Shanghai and the potential of creating more sustainable urban landscapes. She concluded that some 

potential effective ways to improve biodiversity in Shanghai included better governmental regulations on nursery 

markets and construction companies, integrating existing ecological sites into a broad dynamic network, conducting 

appropriate suburban planning and the establishment of some experimental near-nature urban landscapes in 

downtown areas. 

Eco-city: initial integration of agriculture and future prospect 

More and more eco-city projects burgeoned in China, with different underlying principles, timelines and project 

objectives. Yun’s summer research focused on their capability to integrate the former settlements and agriculture 

into their eco-city project and the sustainability of this integration. The two projects that she focused on, Changxing 

and Wanzhuang, both have a very strong agricultural characteristic and heritage. The research investigated the 

following key questions: How is the project going to integrate this agricultural heritage into its overall design? What 

major changes will occur for local farming? What are the disadvantages that the former residents will have while both 

projects are said to bring them maximum benefits? What are the long-term prospects for local farming? During this 

empowering process, do local residents have the opportunity to participate in planning? How do developers view the 

role of farming? To what extent will this characteristic define the project? 

Sophia Michelen ‘09 

Ghana Gold Study Tour 2009 

Gold is Ghana’s primary export product, allowing for international mining companies to extricate the gold. While the 

government profits from royalties (everything under the surface is government property), the local communities and 

environment suffer. These mining companies are expected to create and expand corporate social responsibility plans 

for the surrounding communities, yet substantial progress has not yet been made. Sophia, along with ten other Tufts 

undergraduate students and two professors, traveled to Ghana for two weeks during January for a study tour focusing 

on Ghana’s Gold mining industry. The research on the trip focused on understanding corporate social responsibility 

and its implementation within the mining towns. This research was carried out through meetings with members of 

Parliament, the Ministry of Mines, AngloGold Ashanti mining company, local officials and illegal miners. While Anglo- 

Gold Ashanti actively stressed their initiative for cleaner land and water sources around the mines, the illegal miners 

and local citizens told a different story. The surrounding communities did not share the feeling that the companies 

were keeping with their expected corporate responsibilities. The study tour allowed the students to gather the necessary 

first-hand information regarding Ghana’s Gold industries through observation of various facets of the industry. 

Upon returning to campus, a semester-long colloquium expanded on the tour’s research. By the end of the semester, 

a documentary was produced demonstrating the industry’s role in Ghana and the role, or lack thereof, of corporate 

social responsibility in the mining communities. 

Duncan Pickard 

Comparative Slavery: Spanish Colonial Rule in Peru and the Dominican Republic in the 16th and 17th Centuries 

Enslaved Africans were subjected to different systems of social, political, and economic control in Peru and the Do- 

30 


minican Republic, respectively. What were the similarities and differences 

of slave control in these 16th and 17th century Spanish colonies, and how 

did the Spanish colonial hierarchy delimit how enslaved people we able to 

express their traditions from Africa? Duncan’s thesis explored the social, political, 

and economic conditions on plantations; to what extent Africans and 

their descendents kept traditions alive; the cultural aspects of these communities 

that survive today; the cultural mixing that took place between 

European, African, and Amerindian cultural, political, and economic frameworks; 

etc. He spent particular time exploring the concept of the day off in 

plantation societies. An irony of the black experience in Latin America is that, in desperate attempts to Europeanize 

the slave work force, they let slave labor have Sunday off, theoretically for prayer. But Sundays gave slaves the opportunity 

to keep traditions alive in various ways when they were not tied to their fieldwork. African diaspora communities 

in Latin America thrive today on a heritage and tradition that survives through the centuries despite the 

rigid Spanish hierarchy in the 17th century. This senior honors thesis in the history department will compare how 

two African American communities — one in Peru, one in the Dominican Republic — experienced their traditional 

culture under Spanish colonial control. 

Radhika Saraf ‘11 

Public Reactions to Terrorism and Global Cities 

The city of Mumbai in India had serial blasts in 1993, which was a response to the riots that struck the city after the 

demolition of the Babri Masjid. These serial blasts were unprecedented in their toll and led to further polarization 

of Hindus and Muslims. However, the recent terror attacks in Mumbai on 26th November 2008 seemed to bring the 

people on the streets together in a way that the city has never seen before. Peace marches, rallies, anger towards the 

government and a seemingly united society seemed to emerge. Radhika conducted research on this change in reaction, 

in order to see if the city was really united or not and whether the public discontent and anger would lead to 

any constructive change in the future. 

Kara Takasaki ‘11 and Tomas Valdes ‘11 

The Urban Transformation of Bogotá, Colombia’s Transportation System 

For two weeks, Kara and Tomas researched the context and methods the city of Bogotá, Colombia used to transform 

its urban transportation system and public space to reclaim the city for its citizens. In Bogotá, the students conducted 

interviews with public officials, engineers, academics, and the general public about the economic and sociological 

consequences of the TransMilenio and related upgrading of urban space, transportation systems, and city services. 

They also researched up to date statistics, surveys, and reports evaluating the effects of these renovations and innovations 

on the city. 

The TransMilenio is a Bus Rapid Transit system where high capacity low emission buses can transport close to 40,000 

passengers per hour in exclusive bus lanes with local and express bus services using the same infrastructure. Stations 

are accessible to the disabled and designed with pre-board fare collection. There is efficient boarding of vehicles 

through multiple doors and information is available in the stations and online. Smaller feeder buses that link from 

outside the city to the main network have an integrated fare so it is a flat fare for both main and feeder services. The 

system is run by centralized control, using advanced scheduling and control technologies that incorporate GPS to 

locate vehicles and record data on all operations. 


While implementing the TransMilenio the city also upgraded city services like sidewalks, roads, streetlights, sewage 

systems, and public space. In the reclamation of public space, new policies provided infrastructure development, 

area beautification, and enforcement of usage restrictions. The system is considered to be a “best practice” for cities 

in developing countries around the world. 

Elyse Tyson ‘09 

Embracing Sustainable Transportation in Denmark: 

An Anthropological Study 

Elyse’s research used the seminal frameworks of 

Marcel Mauss, Sidney Mintz and Bruno Latour to deconstruct 

how emerging transportation paradigms 

interact with existing conceptualizations of automotive 

technology and policy in Denmark as the nation 

prepares to make the shift from internal combustion 

to electric vehicles. Specifically, she used the above 

anthropological frameworks, in conjunction with 

fieldwork conducted in Copenhagen in March 2009, 

to analyze the situation catalyzed by the activities of 

electric vehicles’ three most vocal proponents, the 

Danish government, Danish Oil and Natural Gas, and 

Better Place. In spite of Denmark’s clear progress toward electric vehicle implementation, multifaceted relationships 

among the major champions of electric cars, complex automobile ideologies and finally, Denmark’s conflicted environmental 

consciousness will render the fomentation of electric vehicle adoption far more contentious than anticipated. 

Her fieldwork demonstrates that this process will depend immensely on the communications strategies chosen 

by the institutional actors involved as well as how effectively their messages address the various webs of significance 

that intersect at the moment when a consumer makes the decision to purchase a car. 

Ethiopia Special Project 

(conducted in collaboration with the visiting professors from Addis Ababa University) 

Adrienne Frieden ‘09, Mara Gittleman ’09, Eileen Guo ‘12, 

Gillian Javetsky ‘11, Michelle Liu ’11, Brittany Wright ‘09 

Our trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was an incredible journey 

into the worlds of rapid urban development, unpredictable 

research experiences, and intercultural socializing. We 

each had invaluable experiences working with and getting to 

know individuals from a culture we had only seen on paper, 

and this experience added to our worldviews in ways that 

will allow us to understand urban issues on a much deeper 

level. 

32 


The trip would not have been possible without the generous help and guidance of numerous individuals, both in the 

US and Ethiopia. Gregg Steinberg provided funding, while Dr. Abebe and Dr. Heyaw helped enormously in Addis itself. 

Although our amount of interaction and contact with Dr. Abebe and Dr. Heyaw differed with each student, they were 

invaluable in helping us adjust to the city. They did everything possible to make us feel comfortable and welcome in the 

city, in addition to providing us with numerous opportunities and research contacts. Some of these included university 

students from Southern Campus, home to the Faculties of Urban Planning, Architecture, and Construction Management. 

The students that we met were friendly and fascinated by everything American; they helped to make our brief stay in 

Addis very enjoyable. 

Because each of us focused on different research topics, below follows a brief account from each student on her individual 

experience in Addis Ababa. The students also presented their research at the EPIIC symposium. 

Adrienne Frieden 

The Grand Housing Project: Addis Ababa 

Initially, I had proposed looking at private housing models in Addis Ababa. However, in doing my pre-trip research, I 

stumbled upon a brief paragraph or two, amidst a much longer report from the UNHABITAT, which discussed the government 

“cost-efficient” condominium program. Recognizing this as a massive undertaking, with little information available 

internationally, I decided to redirect my research to look at this new program. My research, though covering a broad 

spectrum of issues surrounding the condominium project, focused primarily on the affordability aspect of the housing 

program. My intention was to look at whether or not it was in reach of its target audience and if not, to see if there was 

a possibility to make it more available to the lower income residents of the city. 

Because my research on the government 

housing projects was most directly related 

to Dr. Heyaw and his work, I spent most of 

my time with him at the Southern Campus 

and met many of my vital contacts through 

him. I really feel that they went above and 

beyond with respect to helping us out. 

My research itself went very well, however, 

within the time limits. We spent the first 

few days getting acquainted with the city 

and more specifically the university, touring 

the campuses, meeting various people 

in the departments and getting to know 

some of the students. By the time my research 

actually got underway, we only had one week left, which was interrupted by the Christmas holidays. Dr. Heyaw 

set up my first main contact, a Project Manager for the condominium project in the Bole sub-city. Over the week, I held 

two extensive interviews with him and was able to tour a number of the condominium sites and speak with some of the 

residents. Through my graduate student, I met another urban planner from the housing office, and he too proved to be a 

very valuable source, both directly as well as indirectly by introducing me to other individuals intimately acquainted with 


the project. There were a number of other individuals and organizations with whom I had wished to speak, the World 

Bank, some housing NGOs, as well as the head of the housing authority. However, there simply was not enough time to 

schedule appointments and meet with all of these individuals. 

Although by the end of the week I had conducted some excellent interviews and received tons of quality information, I 

did not feel that my project is completed, or sufficiently well rounded. Consequently, I decided to pursue an independent 

study spring semester to focus on my project, to delve deeper into the problems at hand, and hopefully to come away with 

some useful suggestions and proposals for the condominium project and the housing office. 

Mara Gittleman 

Urban Expansion in Addis Ababa: Effects on Urban Agriculture and its Social Implications 

I worked very closely with Dr. Heyaw at AAU, who became very interested in my subject. He helped me set up interviews 

with past masters students and fresh produce vendors and came with me to various sites of urban agriculture and vegetable 

exchange around the city. It took us most of the two weeks just to figure out the food system in order to be able to 

ask the right questions about the implications of decreased urban agriculture in Addis Ababa. 

What I found was that urban agriculture plays a vital role in securing livelihoods and access to food for the most vulnerable 

populations of Addis Ababa. Ethiopia lacks the technology and resources that we have to store and transport fresh 

produce long distances, so most if not all of the produce sold in the city must come from nearby. Food grown within the 

city is the freshest, and adds a tremendous amount to the city’s supply. This keeps prices down—during the rainy season, 

when very few crops are in season in Addis, food prices can go up more than 500 percent. This can put a large percentage 

of the population at risk for malnutrition and starvation. 

When the government expands the borders of the city and 

uses more land for development, less land is available for 

cultivation. Entire agricultural communities are moved and 

left with very little compensation for their land, with no other 

skills to rely upon in a city with already very few employment 

opportunities. The government expects them to use the small 

compensation money for investments in new livelihoods and 

homes, particularly in their new condominium project (Adrienne’s 

project), but this rarely ends up being the case. This 

process of rapid urban development is working both to increase 

the populations of unemployed and homeless peoples 

and to decrease the supply of fresh produce available, causing prices and food insecurity (Eileen’s project) to increase. 

It was interesting to see how my research bridged together a couple of the other projects on our trip. Our projects pieced 

together a story of the consequences of urban development that fails to take the majority of the population into account. 

The two weeks that we spent in the city ignited a desire to do more, and I hope we get the chance to go back to do so! 

Mara submitted her finished paper to the SUSTAIN-US Citizen Scientist Contest and was chosen as the university student 

to present her findings to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development at UN Headquarters in 

New York City. Mara also used her research and interest in urban agriculture to apply for the Compton Foundation’s 

34 


Mentor Fellowship Program. She was selected as a recipient and will spend her year working with the Council on the 

Environment of New York City, a non-profit under the Mayor’s Office that oversees all community gardens, farmers 

markets (Greenmarkets), and environmental education in the city. With the Council, she will be creating a map of 

the city’s food distribution system with community gardens, farmers markets, and food retail. This could be used to 

determine food deserts, areas where affordable fresh produce is hard to come by, and opportunities for new local 

food infrastructure. 

Eileen Guo 

The Global Food Crisis and the Urban Poor 

Though the trip to Addis was understandably full of surprises, one of the most surprising things that I found was the ease 

with which I, as an individual undergraduate student, was able to build my own networks and the amount I was able to 

accomplish. I was able to meet with officials in the UN – specifically the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) and 

World Food Program (WFP) – for example, as well as representatives from the Red Cross, Oxfam, and other international 

and local aid organizations. 

In addition to having these official interviews and hearing the 

official perspectives, I also met the people that their organizations 

were meant to aid: the marginalized urban slum communities. 

My interviews with the members of these communities 

were conducted in two main areas of the city: Lideta and 

Addis Ketema, although I also visited numerous other slum 

communities – though this is hardly notable, as over 98 percent 

(or more, depending on how “slum” is being defined) of 

the city consists of slums. 

Though my first week, which was more of an introduction 

to the city and culture than anything directly related to my 

research topic, was frustrating at times, the opportunities that it provided to explore and to get to know Addis Ababa 

culturally were also very valuable. Dr. Heyaw, Dr. Abebe, as well as the others that we met, both within the university 

and without, gave us a glimpse into their fascinating lives and rich culture. The hospitality that was extended to us was 

touching; I only hope that we will be able to repay it in kind. 

Michelle Liu 

Peer-education HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs Targeted at In-School Youth of Addis Ababa 

I met my first contact through the help of Dr. Abebe. He introduced me to Dr. Sori Ararsa Weyesa, the project coordinator 

of a prevention program at Addis Ababa University. The project is named Modeling and Reinforcement to Combat HIV/ 

AIDS (MARCH) and is a prevention project supervised by CDC-Ethiopia. The broader MARCH program in Ethiopia has 

three current projects, aimed at three different target groups: the national defense force of Ethiopia, the national police 

force, and Addis Ababa University students. It receives technical assistance from the Aids Resource Center/Johns Hopkins 

University (JHU-CCP). 

I interviewed Dr. Sori about the MARCH program at AAU and through the program, also met a graduate student named 

Biniyam Eskinder who was the monitoring and evaluative officer of the AAU-MARCH Program. He provided information 


on the theoretical aspects of the MARCH approach to HIV/AIDS prevention, helped me set up a contact with Afeefa Abur- 

Rahman, who was the CCP Program Officer and current acting BCC Unit Coordinator at the Aids Resource Center and took 

me to one of MARCH’s special events on campus. 

I also met up with Zeleka Yeraswork, a former EPIIC student currently working for the Clinton Foundation’s AIDS Initiative 

and living in Addis Ababa. She opened up an entirely different perspective in researching my topic. She asked me 

what I specifically wanted to pursue and how I wanted to accomplish it. I explained some of the observations that had 

struck me during my research. 

One realization was that after having researched a bit on the MARCH program, I had become interested in prevention 

programs aimed at students because, as a student myself, I was aware of how easy it is for students to dismiss most 

prevention programs if they perceive them as “uncool” or “useless.” 

Another observation which had intrigued me was the degree to which most Ethiopian students were familiar with Western 

pop culture (movies, TV shows, and music); often times they knew more about American pop culture than I did. 

Considering the success of the Tufts student-run TV show “Mouthwash,” I wondered if it would be feasible to construct a 

TV show in Ethiopia that could be used as a media outlet for an HIV/AIDS prevention program. This also led me to think 

about how, if students were involved in the creative process of a modeling component of a prevention program, it might 

lead to a more popular and successful prevention program among the youth (in the same vein of Agyeman’s DIPS model). 

The last significant observation I made is that a lot of the information I had received at the AAU-MARCH special event 

reminded me of information I had learned in my high school health class or in college orientation. It made me wonder 

why the government had failed to implement a high school level health class that taught students about health-related 

issues if HIV/AIDS was such a large concern. 

After hearing my observations, Zeleka helped me formulate a plan on how you might go about creating such a prevention 

program. I thought it might be effective if a program could be set up which allowed AAU students to get together, 

brainstorm about what messages they wanted to share with high school students (about HIV/AIDS and even general 

college-preparation tips on how to stay safe on campus, what to do at parties, awareness of drugs, etc.), and decide on 

what method they would like to convey these ideas (e.g. a TV show, play, discussion, etc.). She also encouraged me to go 

out into the city and gain more first-hand experiences regarding how HIV/AIDS is perceived (e.g. go to hospitals, talk to 

students, buy condoms, etc.). This was a great suggestion, especially because I had been so caught up in the idea that 

research was supposed to be finding members of NGOs to interview, etc. 

Over the next few days I conducted more interviews. One of 

my interviews was with Dr. Endale Workelmahu who worked 

at the CDC and was the BCC technical officer for all three of 

the MARCH projects in Ethiopia. He provided more general 

insights into how the CDC manages the three projects. I also 

interviewed Afeefa, who is an American working at JHU-CCP 

and was extremely helpful. She provided a lot of useful information 

on how MARCH puts together its modeling component 

(printed serial dramas) and gave me many useful insights into 

how she believed HIV/AIDS should be approached within the 

36 


Ethiopian community with regard to cultural sensitivities. She put me in contact with Desta Kebede, who is the Senior 

Programming Officer at the Health Communication Partnership (HCP). Desta, who works specifically on prevention 

programs aimed at youth, told me about the five projects they have going on aimed at all different ages. Currently HCP 

has the only programs that are being integrated by the government into the public school system. 

Through contacts I made through Eileen, I also interviewed Stefanit Samuels, the program assistant for the HIV/AIDS 

programs run by the UN World Food Programme. She provided me with an overview of what programs the WFP ran to 

combat HIV/AIDS. Another contact I interviewed was Yared G. Michael, who was part of the Beza Lehiwot Ethiopia NGO. 

Beza Lehiwot Ethiopia works with children, and I was quite surprised to find that they used some of the materials produced 

by Desta’s programs (such as the Youth Action Kit). Yared also allowed Eileen and I to accompany a volunteer on 

her rounds through the slum with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS to check on HIV-positive mothers and their children. 

The experience was one of the most amazing on the trip, and it was quite eye-opening to actually enter people’s homes in 

the slums (which were often no larger than a closet) to see how many mothers lived and supported their children. 

Gillian Javetsky 

An analysis of poverty reduction methods for coffee farmers in Ethiopia’s Sidama region 

For my EPIIC project, I went to Addis with the intention of looking at how corporate social responsibility has shaped the 

business ethics of many American companies working in Ethiopia. After lots of initial research, I decided to narrow my 

focus to look particularly at coffee companies. Coffee is Ethiopia’s number one export, and every major American coffee 

company does business in Ethiopia. 

But despite this trade relationship between the two countries and a growing demand for Ethiopian coffee from the US, 

today, many coffee farmers live in absolute poverty because they are not paid nearly enough for their product. In order 

to stay out of poverty, more coffee farmers are beginning to switch to growing and selling chat, an amphetamine-like 

stimulant that earns more than twice the price of coffee. After years of letting this poverty remain unmonitored, the 

Ethiopian government is beginning to institute a series of policy innovations to give Ethiopian coffee farmers a better 

price for their coffee and lift them out of poverty. 

To explore this issue, I decided to interview people involved with coffee production at all different sectoral levels, including 

officials from the government, NGOs, unions, and the private sector. I was surprised at how many people were willing 

and excited to be interviewed by an American undergraduate. By the time I was done with my research, I had interviewed 

head officials from USAID, Oxfam, the Oromia Coffee Farmer’s Union, the president of a coffee exporting company, and 

the head of the Ethiopian agricultural coffee sector, among many others. 

What surprised me the most about these interviews was that despite the fact that everyone who I interviewed knew 

people in the different sectors involved in coffee production, they all had very different ideas about the best methods to 

reduce poverty in the coffee regions. It made me realize that while Ethiopian officials are now active in addressing these 

poverty issues, there is very little communication and resource pooling between all of these sectors to come up with the 

most effective plan. 

Overall, this was a trip that I will never forget. The city of Addis is beautiful, and so are its people. I have never met 

friendlier, more excited and appreciative people in my entire life. By the end of our two weeks in Addis, I felt very much at 

home. Dr. Abebe, Dr. Heyaw, and the students from Addis Ababa University had really become our mentors and friends, 


and I am very grateful for all of their help. I’ve stayed in touch with a few of the students we met there. I found myself 

to be very quiet on the plane ride home and the first few days back at Tufts, lost in thought about Addis and what had 

just happened over the course of the two weeks. Even now I’m a little homesick for Ethiopia and would love to go back 

any day. More importantly, I am completely thankful to everyone who made this trip possible. 

Brittany Wright 

Design of Rural Wind Turbines Using Local Materials 

The research trip allowed me to create a foundation for our upcoming senior design project. My goals were to gather 

data about geology, seismic activity, blade materials, generators, and local manufacturing methods. I worked mainly 

with engineering staff members at the Faculty of Technology. Dr. Abebayehu Assefa, a mechanical engineering professor, 

gave me a tour of the engineering facilities. The woodshops, metalworking, and welding stations there would be great 

resources for construction if an implementation trip is possible. I also sat in on a senior Power Generation class taught by 

Dr. Abebayehu. One group presented their final project on wind power potential in Ethiopia. I was able to make contacts 

with the students and ask them more questions about their research. 

Meeting with Dr. Zelalem Hailu, the head of the civil engineering 

department, I was able to gain a better understanding of 

construction methods. He also provided me with a national 

study that looked at using solar and hydropower in off-grid 

systems. He also gave me wind data from the 1970s from different 

regions of Ethiopia. From this data, I was able to narrow 

down optimal sites for wind turbines. Shiferaw Damtie, 

a lecturer in mechanical engineering, accompanied me to the 

National Meteorological Agency to obtain more recent data. 

The limited data I was able to copy will allow me to choose 

a specific site. The decision will be made with the help of the 

civil engineers to avoid areas of high seismic activity and to 

have access to vegetation. Shiferaw Damtie also helped me 

find local manufacturing companies and generator providers. 

Dr. Zelalem introduced me to the geotechnical professor, 

Dr. Hadush Seged. He will be the main contact for the civil 

engineers working on the foundation and vibrations of the 

turbine. 

Dr. Abebe and Dr. Heyaw were instrumental in making the initial contacts. Dr. Abebe introduced me to many faculty 

members within the engineering departments and helped set up appointments. Dr. Heyaw checked in on our progress 

daily. As I spoke with more and more professors, I found that they, like many professors in the United States, wanted to 

focus on cutting-edge technology and megawatt wind farms. The purpose of my project was to focus on grassroots engineering 

and small-scale innovative technologies. For this reason, I felt like I was not getting the answers I came for and 

was contemplating changing the approach of my project until Dr. Heyaw reminded me of the objective. He reminded 

me that the challenge of such a project is the lack of initial information and the required creativity in problem-solving 

to find feasible answers. His acknowledgement of the limitations but understanding of the overall importance helped 

push my research forward and made me look for more contacts outside of the civil and mechanical engineering faculty. 

38 


The evolution of this project from senior Adam White: 

During a meeting with members from the Tufts Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) and the two professors visiting 

from Ethiopia, the students began brainstorming possible EWB type projects that could be applicable in the country. 

As the professors discussed some of the needs of rural communities and rural schools, the students suggested investigating 

rural energy sources, particularly rural low-cost, locally made, wind turbines. 

Though Tufts EWB was not accepting new projects, the students found that the project was compelling and offered an interesting 

design problem, a design problem more applicable to a focused design team then the conventional EWB project. 

One of the requirements for all civil engineers to graduate is to complete a senior design project and so the team worked 

to approve this design project as a department project. At the same time, the specifics of rural wind turbines in Ethiopia 

required a more interdisciplinary team. The all-senior project team was formed of two civil engineers, Deirdre Tomlinson 

and Jon Gregorowicz, a mechanical engineer, Brittany Wright, and a general engineer, Adam White. 

This interdisciplinary team brought an advisor from the civil engineering department, Professor Lewis Edgers, and from 

the mechanical engineering department, Associate Provost Vincent Manno. The project offered very different design problems 

than most conventional senior projects, partly from the mixture of disciplines and related design constraints, and 

also because of the international scope and practicality of the project. 

The key goals of the project that were completed were to identify a possible community in Ethiopia for a pilot project that 

was both representative of a number of rural communities and ideal for a wind power source. This community helped 

to define some of the design constraints, such as approximate weather and soil types, and specify blade and foundation 

designs. 

Next, the team designed the structure from the top down through frequent meetings and by dividing the work among 

the team’s designated experts. First, wind speeds and direction dictated a turbine design of three blades with a fixed 

direction, and estimated power needs guided the blade size and weight. Based on the limited wind in the area, the team 

modified the design to have three shorter (8m) and more modest turbines rather than one much taller (30m) and larger 

turbine. From these, the expected forces of weights and wind were passed on to the structural engineer who looked at 

the different design options for a pole or truss to support the turbine. 

The team elected to use a 

single wooden pole, which 

seemed to be easily obtainable 

and generally affordable 

within the height required. 

This would simplify the design 

and work with Ethiopian 

methods of construction. 

From this structure we were 

able to focus on the foundation 

and supports of the 

structure and yield a final 

design. Once this design was 


finalized, the team was able to estimate the costs of the system and illustrate that a locally manufactured set of turbines 

(made of recycled parts or materials readily available in Ethiopia) could be comparable in price to a prefabricated turbine 

or solar power system. However, the local system would depend on local businesses and suppliers rather than simply 

importing foreign technology and equipment. 

The team completed a full report on the design and methods used. The project was successful in educating the students 

about practical engineering concerns and multi-disciplinary communication. At the same time, this project also opened 

up new opportunities for future engineering design projects to integrate mixed design teams and adopt a focus on real 

world problems that address fundamental societal issues rather than just focusing on engineering needs. This project 

provided more support for expanding a focus in the Tufts engineering school on developing communities and expanded 

the departments’ experience and awareness of the issues. More engineering projects which integrate different departments 

and ideals will help to train engineers that are not only good engineers but understand the context of their work. 

40 


Photos: Opposite Page are photos from the students’ research in 

Addis; This Page has photos from their informals interactions with 

the professors and students. 


Internships 

Along with new internships established through the Empower program, at such places as the Freeplay Foundation in 

London and ACORN International in India, the IGL established a precedent for undergraduate internships at the Peace 

Keeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) at the US Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, PA. Three students 

participated in the internships and were given a variety of tasks. Below are the reflections of two of the interns. 

Jesse Sloman’09 

Upon graduation, Jesse was commissioned into the US Marine Corps and will begin his training in October 2009. 

I’m now beginning week four of the internship and all is going very well. I have been placed in the Operational Integration 

Division of PKSOI, on account of my having security clearance. The last three weeks we have been working on the 

big After Action Review (AAR) for an exercise caused Austere Challenge 09 that ran a few months ago. AC09 was the first 

large-scale test of a new mechanism for interagency cooperation in stability and reconstruction operations called the 

Integrated Management System (IMS). In particular, AC09 exercised a component of the IMS called the Advanced Civilian 

Team (ACT), a group of specialists from some seven or eight relevant US Government agencies that deploy to an Embassy 

in a crisis country to assist the Chief of Mission and work next to a US military Joint Task Force. 

As far as the actual work I’ve been doing within the AAR, I spent my first week organizing and distilling the raw commentary 

that exercise participants had provided afterwards (all told they came out to 300+ pages printed so it was a fair 

amount!). Then, with that in a digestible format, I participated in a working group with the three folks from my division 

(all active or retired O-5s or O-6s) and a Navy O-5 joint planner who is currently at the Combined Arms Center at Fort 

Leavenworth. That week was definitely the most meaningful, not least because of the chance to be a fly on the wall to 

some fascinating discussions about the interagency challenge. 

The folks in the OI Division are really tremendous and have been very welcoming. The division head is a colonel who has 

really been there, done that. Was a West Point football player, went into the Rangers, and then went into Delta Force. Also 

commanded a battalion in Mosul for 16 months and now does the interagency thing, so he has had a really varied and 

interesting career. OI is also the least academic of all the PKSOI sections--it is “operational” after all--so it is pretty different 

than the stuff I was doing back at Tufts, but that’s okay. I am definitely learning a lot about interagency/whole of 

government issues, the military, the Army, and even the Civil War--we got out to the Gettysburg battlefield last weekend, 

really fascinating (also made me very glad that I am in the Corps circa 2009 and not the Army of the Potomac in 1863). 

In order to get me the security access they wanted for the Austere Challenge stuff, I have to be taken on as a paid contractor, 

so I am now an actual PKSOI employee and will be able to stay on through July and then come back in September for 

a month. This is very exciting and definitely much more than I expected when I came down initially looking to stay on for 

just four weeks. Not only will I be able to continue the AC09 work, but it gives me even more of an opportunity to work 

with Karen Finkenbinder (Research and Publications Analyst) and COL Coplen figuring out the ways to connect Tufts and 

PKSOI and ensure that we get an excellent crop of interns here next year. The internship program is brand new, so we are 

really getting in at the formative stages and have the chance to help shape it in interesting ways. 

I am also going to be publishing an article in the next PKSOI Bulletin in which I will be discussing the value of undergraduate 

civil-military education in preparing individuals for whole-of-government (WoG) operations so the ALLIES civ- 

42 


mil model and the IGL will get a prominent mention. So a four-week internship turned into a 2.5 month paid job and an 

article--not bad at all! 

Nathaniel Teichman’09 

Nathaniel is currently a research assistant at Physicians for Human Rights. 

I initially found the framework and the terminology of SOLLIMS confusing. I was tasked with creating Observations and 

Recommendations (O&Rs) on documents pertaining to a wide variety of subjects centered on peacekeeping and stability 

operations [Interagency Cooperation and a Comprehensive Look at Conflict Prevention, Essential Leadership Competencies 

in Multidimensional Peacekeeping Operations, Integrating Civilian Capabilities into Military Planning of Stability 

Operations, Identifying and Closing Civil-Military Capability Gaps in Stability Operations, Winning Hearts and Minds: 

Inconsistencies in American Strategic Communications]. My role was to take military documents and translate them into 

accessible, summarized recommendations that a wider, civilian audience can better understand. Since I have no military 

background, I had some difficulty understanding some of the military acronyms and terminology. As I continued to read, 

though, I was able to adapt to the unfamiliar format. In retrospect I think a person such as myself, who has a strong interest 

in the subject matter, but little military experience is perfect for generating civilian-friendly, yet informative reports. I 

was able to study military documents, decipher the overarching recommendations, and then create O&Rs that will prove 

helpful for both military and civilian personnel in the peacekeeping and stability operation field. 

I am incredibly appreciative of the opportunity I was given to work at the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. 

I gained invaluable insight and perspective into some of the challenges facing U.S. military and civilian personnel 

today, while also gaining a sense of the culture of the military. I felt welcomed immediately. Down to the last person, 

everyone went well out of their way to assist me in any way possible. I was warmly welcomed into the family at PKSOI 

from the day I walked into the office and for that I am very grateful. Colonel John Kardos, Dan French, Colonel Lorelei 

Coplen, Karen Finkenbinder, Dennis Keller, Chris Brown, Colonel Scott Wuestner, Harry Phillips and Lieutenant Colonel 

John Stepansky amongst many others were always there to help. 

Conferences 

The IGL believes that conferences where students have a real opportunity for discussion and exchange, especially 

with peers and individuals from different cultures and different experiences, can be a very valuable educational tool. 

This year, through the ALLIES program, the IGL sent delegations to the major international student conferences at the 

US Military Academy and the US Naval Academy. The IGL also supported several students to attend the Fifth Urban 

Research Symposium: Cities and Climate Change in Marseilles, France. 


INQUIRY 

Inquiry, one of the university’s largest and most diverse public service initiatives, completed its 18th year of bringing 

complex, global issues to high schools. More than 300 high school students and more than 20 teachers from public, 

private and parochial schools in six states participated in this year’s program. The high school students were mentored 

by 44 Tufts students from the EPIIC and Inquiry Teaching Group classes. 

The theme for this year’s Inquiry was “Sustainable Cities.” The theme, as it is each year, is a sub-topic of the EPIIC 

annual theme. Readers that contained extensive articles on urbanization were sent to the schools. The high school 

students worked through the information in the reader, each school at its own pace. 

The Inquiry Teaching Group and the Inquiry Committee from the EPIIC class met regularly to determine the scope, issues 

and roles for the simulation. The students chose Governance, Security, Urban Planning, Economic Development, 

Environment, Social Services, and Culture and Identity for the committee themes. 

They then determined what the participating 

delegations would be, with a specific 

emphasis on having a broad range 

of cities, in different stages of economic 

success and decline, speak to each other 

about their innovations and challenges. 

The roles for the simulation were: Addis 

Ababa, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Capetown, 

Corporate Consortium, Detroit, Dubai, Istanbul, 

Lagos, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, 

New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, 

and Tokyo. 

The last step in preparing the simulation 

was to determine the specific questions that the students would be asked to discuss and debate. Some of the questions 

they were asked to consider were: 

• Richard Sennett writes, “The cities everyone wants to live in should be clean and safe, possess efficient public 

services, be supported by a dynamic economy, provide cultural stimulation, and also do their best to heal society’s 

divisions of race, class, and ethnicity. These are not the cities we live in. They fail on all these counts due to government 

policy, irreparable social ills, and economic forces beyond local control. The city is not its own master.” He 

argues that one of the failures is that experimentation has given way to the forces of power and control, from design 

to governance. How do we recover our urban imagination? The committee is asked to design a plan to engage the 

whole city in urban planning. 

Committee on Security 

• The world is seeing an increase in deadly urban warfare tactics, such as suicide bombing and suicidal attacks as happened 

in New York, Madrid, London and Mumbai. The city is a complex terrain, one that both encourages openness 

44 


and engagement and one that provides many options for high impact attacks. Many ordinary objects and locations 

can be converted into weapons and battlegrounds. How does a leader behave politically, knowing the potential risks 

to civilian populations in potential target cities? What are the cost-benefit calculations? How can local and national 

forces contend with threats while achieving the goals of stability, economic development and sustainable security in 

cities? To what degree does urban terrorism affect the chances of achieving sustainable peace? How do leaders continue 

to encourage domestic growth and urban development given the risks of creating more desirable targets? The 

delegates are asked to make recommendations regarding political (international and domestic) and tactical methods 

for protecting target cities while encouraging their openness and growth. 

• The amount of urban violence seen at any given time varies with changes in politics, the economy, and the environment. 

With increased rates of urban violence, cities, or parts of cities, can become paralyzed in a state of disrepair, 

economic stagnation, and hopelessness. How can cities secure their future against urban violence? What alternatives 

are there to having more police? Can the judicial or penal system be revised to ensure greater equity and higher numbers 

of rehabilitated individuals? How can violence, drug trafficking and corruption be discouraged to make the city 

safe for all? Delegates are asked to address the issue of urban violence and develop ten universal recommendations 

that all city governments can be asked to consider in contending with these difficult issues. 

• Cities, especially large cities, can often become segregated entities, between rich and poor, formal and informal, 

and among ethnic, racial and religious groups. What is the role of urban planning in a city? Should the city be open 

to all? What is the role of transportation and public spaces, such as parks and libraries? Do roads kill cities? Should 

cities encourage interaction? The committee is asked to develop guidelines for urban planners on how to develop 

the city for all. 

• With rapid urbanization has come the rise of the informal 

economy. Nearly one billion people globally live in squatter 

settlements, giving rise to an informal economy, not just 

based around housing – tenants and landlords – but also in 

the services these communities need. Informal jobs arise as 

cities are flooded with job seekers leaving their homes and 

coming to the city for better opportunities. The informal 

sector is untaxed but may tax city services, such as illegally 

accessing water and power. The delegates are asked to recommend 

how cities should contend with the informal sector, 

for both the health of the cities and the health of its formal and informal residents. 

• The automobile gave rise to the suburbs. The growth of suburbs and urban sprawl are often cited as main factors 

adversely affecting city environments, including increased emissions from cars, the reliance on cars over public 

transportation, and the amounts of water and land used per person. In this context, many cities are rethinking urban 

density and attracting people back to the city, to smaller living spaces. The committee is asked to consider the positives 

and negatives of increasing density in cities and to recommend under what conditions this should and should 

not happen. 

• With more and more citizens and scarce resources, health care is an urgent problem in urban areas. As density 


in cities increases and more and more squatter communities develop, the threat of pandemics spreading easily is a 

primary concern for government officials. Diseases ranging from tuberculosis to dengue fever to HIV/AIDS have the 

potential to devastate urban communities worldwide. What systems do local governments need to put in place to 

contend with these challenges? The delegates are asked to construct a public health plan for urban centers. 

• How does architecture and urban planning reflect the philosophy of the government and the culture of the city? 

How do countries use urban architecture to define themselves to the world? Does the process of urban planning 

differ between cities with autocratic or centralized governments and those with democratic governments? Is architecture 

merely functional or should it also help shape the identity of the city? The committee is asked to develop 

recommendations for cities to use in working with architects to design the city. 

Banana Kelly High School, Bronx, NY (Tokyo) 

Boston Latin HS, Boston, MA (Istanbul) 

Boston Latin HS, Boston, MA (London) 

HSTAT, Brooklyn, NY (Rio de Janeiro) 

Medford HS, Medford, MA (Mexico City) 

Pace Academy, Atlanta, GA (Lagos) 

46 


Banana Kelly High School, Bronx, NY 

HSTAT, Brooklyn, NY (New York City) 

Brookline HS, Brookline, MA (Capetown) 

Dover-Sherborn HS, Dover, MA (London) 

Pace Academy, Atlanta, GA (Shanghai) 

Dover-Sherborn HS, Dover, MA (Detroit) 

Medford HS, Medford, MA (Mexico City) 

St. Martin de Porres HS, Chicago, IL (Berlin) 


An innovation in this year’s Inquiry program was a pilot Inquiry 

international research trip. To provide an opportunity 

to see this year’s topic, Global Cities, first hand, the IGL organized 

a weeklong trip to Shanghai. 

This year, two high schools that have a long history with the 

IGL selected delegations to send on the pilot trip to look at 

contemporary urbanization issues in China’s fastest growing 

city. Three EPIIC students -- two seniors, Adam White and 

Peter Radosevich, and a first year student from Shanghai, 

Yun Luo -- traveled with students and teachers from Pace 

Academy in Atlanta, GA and Columbia Preparatory School in 

New York City. Also accompanying the group was Dr. Ryan 

Centner, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tufts and an 

EPIIC alumnus, whose current research focuses on urban issues. 

While in Shanghai, the Inquiry group met with a number of 

professors at different universities in Shanghai for lectures 

on topics ranging from ecological preservation to China’s 

floating population. Lecturers included, Zuo Xuejin, the executive vice president and senior research fellow at the 

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and Director of the Institute of Economics at the Academy (photo below); Lu 

Zhibo of the State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and 

Resources Reuse at Tongji University; Zhang Peng, Architect 

and Professor for the “Historic Conservation” program in 

Shanghai at Tongji University; and Chen Wai, Director of the 

Research Office of “Regional Economy and Shanghai Economy” 

of the Institute of Economics of Shanghai Academy of 

Social Sciences. 

The students also had the opportunity to visit the U.S. Consulate 

in the city and meet with the US Economic Officer 

and another EPIIC student, Ben Beede. The lectures were 

supplemented by trips to Shanghai neighborhoods and sites 

relevant to their lectures. The students spent time exploring the old city of Shanghai and the Bund, the roots of the 

city’s international past. The group spent one afternoon contemplating the new urban development at Pudong, the 

high-tech section of Shanghai with the city’s now famous skyline. This section of the city illustrated some of the examples, 

and also the pitfalls, of modern planning and urbanization. 

The group visited the Jewish Refugee museum and the Urban planning museum (opposite page, bottom right), and 

also spent an evening at the Xintiandi shopping complex, home of a contemporary Western style development, 

though only steps away from the site of the first Communist meeting. The group also spent one day traveling outside 

of the city to visit Suzhou, one of the garden cities of China, and Zhouzhaung, a water village (opposite page, bottom 

left) to understand alternative urban forms and have a broader sense of Chinese life. 

48 


Finally, the students spent one morning visiting a high school (left) where 

they had an opportunity to meet local students and hear a more personal 

account of life in China and in Shanghai. 

The students came away with a number of lessons learned from the trip. 

Much of the discussion focused on the issues particular to Shanghai and 

China, including components of the educational system, the recent development, 

and the upcoming world expo in 2010. The students developed 

an enhanced understanding of the topics related to planning and organizing 

a city within the context of one of Asia’s most diverse and fascinating 

metropolises. 

The students returned to the U.S. with a greater mission in the Inquiry 

preparation and an enhanced perspective on city life and Shanghai. The 

fourteen students came to Tufts for the Inquiry simulation, where they 

presented on the myriad of issues affecting Shanghai and the complexity of their experience in the city. 

Monica Markovits, dean and history chair at Columbia Prep 

said, “I believe that the Shanghai trip was a resounding 

success. The entire school is abuzz with information, anecdotes, 

and worthwhile images of Shanghai… If I had taught 

these kids for a lifetime, I could never have given them what 

they now have.” 

This pilot inquiry program was a great success for all of the 

students involved, Inquiry, and the IGL. For 2009-10, Inquiry 

is planning a second trip, to Mumbai. 


50 


DR. JEAN MAYER GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AWARDS 

“Scholarship, research and teaching must be dedicated to solving the most pressing problems facing the world.” 

– Dr. Jean Mayer, 1920-1993, President and Chancellor, Tufts University 

Dr. Jean Mayer was a world-renowned nutritionist, publishing more than 750 scientific papers and 10 books. He advised 

three U.S. Presidents (Nixon, Ford, Carter), the US Congress, the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization, 

the World Health Organization, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund and the U.S. Secretary of State. He helped 

establish and expand the food stamp, school lunch and other national and international nutrition programs and 

organized the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health. In 1966, Dr. Mayer was the first scientist 

to speak out against the use of herbicides in the Vietnam War. In 1969, he led a mission to war-torn Biafra to assess 

health and nutrition conditions. In 1970, he organized an international symposium on famine, which produced the 

first comprehensive document on how nutrition and relief operations should be handled in times of disaster and was 

the first to suggest that using starvation as a political tool was a violation of human rights and should be outlawed. 

As the 10th president of Tufts University, Dr. Mayer created the nation’s first graduate school of nutrition, established 

New England’s only veterinary school and the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts, and cofounded 

the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and the Center for Environmental Management. As chair 

of the New England Board of Higher Education, he created scholarships that enabled non-white South Africans to go 

to mixed-race universities in their own country. 

“...Mayer moved universities as social institutions in new directions and toward the assumption of larger responsibilities. 

He saw them as instruments for improving society and the world environment... Those who knew him will miss his quick 

grasp of complicated and often-conflicting material, the clarity of his insight, his courage in tackling formidable tasks 

and his unfailing charm.” -- The Boston Globe 

EPIIC established the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award in 1993 to honor his work and life and his ongoing support 

of EPIIC’s, and now the Institute’s, mission and pedagogy. Since then, the award has developed from a single, 

annual award as the keynote of the EPIIC symposium to a yearlong lecture series honoring the achievements of 

distinguished individuals and organizations committed to addressing and solving critical global challenges. Also, as 

possible, the IGL seeks to establish internships for students with the recipients or in their organizations as part of the 

Award. The series is made possible through the generosity of IGL Executive Advisory Board Member Theodore Mayer 

and the Mayer Family. 

The 2008-09 recipients were: 

Martti Ahtisaari 

Martti Ahtisaari, who has served most of his career as civil 

servant in the Finnish Foreign Ministry and the United Nations, 

was President of the Republic of Finland between 

1994 and 2000. Since 2000, Mr. Ahtisaari has taken on various 

tasks involved in peace mediation and conflict resolution. 

In 2003, he chaired an independent panel on the security 

and safety of United Nations personnel in Iraq. Between 


2003 and 2005, he served as the UN Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa. In 2005, he facilitated the peace process 

between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement. Between 2005 and 2008, Mr. Ahtisaari acted as 

the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo. Mr. Ahtisaari 

is the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Mr. Ahtisaari is currently Co-Chair of European Council on Foreign Relations; 

Chairman of the Governing Council of Interpeace; and Chairman of the Independent Commission on Turkey, examining 

the challenges and opportunities presented by Turkey’s possible membership in the European Union, among 

other positions. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award; 

the Hessen Peace Prize; the J. William Fulbright Award for International Understanding; and the US State Department’s 

Tribute of Appreciation. Through the his organization, the Crisis Management Initiative, Mr. Ahtisaari was very 

instrumental in the Iraq: Moving Forward initiative of the Institute for Global Leadership and the John W. McCormack 

Graduate School of Policy studies at UMass Boston. 

Bernard Amadei   

Bernard Amadei is the Founding President of Engineers Without Borders-USA 

and co-founder of Engineers Without Borders-International. He is a Professor 

of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His main 

research and teaching interests are in rock mechanics and engineering geology. 

He was recently elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. 

Professor Amadei has been extremely active in publishing papers in 

both scientific journals and at professional meetings. He has co-authored two 

books and approximately 150 technical papers. Professor Amadei’s current 

interests cover the topics of sustainability and international development. At 

the University of Colorado at Boulder, he directs a new program in Engineering 

for Developing Communities. 

Harm de Blij 

Harm de Blij specializes in geopolitical 

and environmental issues and has held 

named chairs at Georgetown University, 

Marshall University, and the Colorado 

School of Mines. He is currently the Distinguished 

Professor of Geography at Michigan 

State University, where he also taught 

throughout the decade of the 1960s. In 

the interim, he chaired the Geography 

Department at the University of Miami 

and served as editor at the National Geographic 

Society. In 1994, National Geographic 

Society President Gilbert Grosvenor 

appointed Dr. de Blij an Honorary Life Member of the Society. Author, professor, and television personality, Harm 

de Blij was the popular Geography Editor on ABC’s Good Morning America for seven years. In 1996, he joined NBC 

News as its Geography Analyst, appearing mostly on MSNBC. He was writer of and commentator for the original PBS 

Series The Power of Place. 

52 


Sergio Fajardo 

Sergio Fajardo Valderrama, a PhD in mathematics, was Mayor of Medellín, Colombia’s 

second largest city, between 2004 and 2007. He is currently running 

for the presidency in the 2010 election. His term governing the city of Medellín 

was marked by transparency, opportunity, and the dramatic decrease in the annual 

rate of homicides. He balanced the local budget, used performance-based 

evaluation to assign the highest staff positions for the Boards of the city, and 

normalized teacher recruitment to one-year terms. Public opinion polls gave 

him an 80 percent approval rating.  He was a member of the National Council 

on Basic Sciences, the National Commission on Masters and Doctorates, the 

Board of the Foundation Supporting the Universidad de Antioquia, and Director 

of the Center for Science and Technology in Antioquia. He also had a career 

as a journalist, and he was sub-director of El Colombiano and a columnist for 

El Mundo, El Espectador and the magazine Dinero. He worked on the television 

programs Operación Ciudad of Telemedellín and Zanahoria of Teleantioquia. 

Mayor Fajardo participated in the peace process as a founding member of the Facilitating Commission for Peace in 

Antioquia (Comisión Facilitadora de Paz de Antioquia) during the tenure of current President Alvaro Uribe. 

José Ramos-Horta 

José Manuel Ramos-Horta is the second President of East Timor since independence 

from Indonesia, taking office on 20 May 2007. He is a co-recipient of 

the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize and a former Prime Minister, having served from 

2006 until his inauguration as President after winning the 2007 East Timorese 

presidential election. As a founder and former member of the Revolutionary 

Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), Ramos-Horta served as 

the exiled spokesman for the East Timorese resistance during the years of the 

Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975 to 1999). While he has continued 

to work with FRETILIN, Ramos-Horta resigned from the party in 1988 and has 

since remained an independent politician. After East Timor achieved independence 

in 2002, Ramos-Horta was appointed as the country’s first Foreign Minister. 

He served in this position until his resignation on 25 June 2006, amidst political turmoil. On 26 June, following 

the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, Ramos-Horta was appointed acting Prime Minister by the President, 

Xanana Gusmão. 

Robert R. Kiley 

Robert R. Kiley is the former commissioner of transport for London (TfL), 

the executive transportation agency of the Mayor of London. Prior to that 

appointment in January 2001, he was president and CEO of the New York 

City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce. Immediately prior to joining 

the Partnership, Mr. Kiley served as a member of Kohlberg & Co. From 

1991 to 1994, he was president of the Fischbach Corporation and in 1994 

became its chairman. As chairman and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan 

Transportation Authority from 1983 to 1990, Mr. Kiley directed 


the rebuilding of New York’s public transportation system (MTA) and restructured its management. Prior to working 

at the MTA, Mr. Kiley consulted with corporations and public agencies at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Management 

Analysis Center in 1979 and was the chairman and CEO of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority 

from 1975 to 1979. Mr. Kiley also served as Boston’s deputy mayor from 1972 to 1975 and as associate director of the 

Police Foundation from 1970 to 1972. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and vice chairman of the 

Citizens Committee for New York. 

Janice Perlman 

Janice Perlman is the Founder and President of The Mega-Cities Project, Inc. a 

global non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations 

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) whose mission is “to shorten the lag time 

between ideas and implementation.” The Mega-Cities strategy is to identify, document, 

disseminate and transfer innovative solutions to the problems cities face in 

common. In 1996, UN-Habitat adopted the Mega-Cities approach, methodology 

and innovations database in creating its “Best Practices Awards.” Previously, Dr. 

Perlman had served as the Executive Director of Strategic Planning for the New 

York City Partnership, which focuses on the use of private resources for public 

goods. She has served as Coordinator of the Inter-Agency Task Force on neighborhoods 

of President Carter’s National Urban Policy and Director of Science, Technology 

and Public Policy at the New York Academy of Sciences. She was named 

Visiting Scholar at the World Bank for 2004-2005. Her publications include The 

Myth of Marginality: Urban Politics and Poverty in Rio de Janeiro; Misconceptions 

about the Urban Poor and the Dynamics of Housing Policy Evolution; Grassrooting the System; the concluding chapter 

of the 2007 State of the World: Our Urban Future; Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro, 

1969-2002; and FAVELA: The Dynamics of Urban Poverty in Rio de Janeiro, 1968-2005. 

Donald Plusquellic 

In January 2009, Donald Plusquellic began his 23rd year as Mayor of the 

City of Akron. He is the city’s longest-serving mayor. Previously, he served 

for 13 years on the Akron City Council where he was president from 1984- 

1987. Fellow mayors elected Mayor Plusquellic as the 62nd President of 

the United States Conference of Mayors in June 2004, a bi-partisan organization 

representing 500 U.S. cities. He currently serves as vice president 

of the International Mayors for Peace organization and has been named 

an honorary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. 

Mayor Plusquellic received the International Economic Development 

Council’s 2008 Leadership Award for Public Service for his leadership in 

working to provide new revenue to re-build every one of Akron’s schools 

as Community Learning Centers by the year 2018. American City & County 

Magazine named Mayor Plusquellic the nation’s “Municipal Leader of the 

Year” in December 2003. The Wall Street Journal recognized the Mayor in 

a front-page article (5/16/00) on the importance of mayoral leadership in America. In 1999, he received the highest 

honor bestowed on city leaders by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the prestigious City Livability Award, for his leadership 

in the decade-long effort to create and develop Joint Economic Development Districts (JEDD) in Ohio. 

54 


Saskia Sassen 

Saskia Sassen, the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia 

University, focuses her research and writing on globalization (social, 

economic, and political), immigration, global cities (including cities 

and terrorism), the new networked technologies, and changes 

within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. 

In her research, she has focused on the counterintuitive as 

a way to cut through established “truths.”  Her three major books 

have each sought to demolish a key established “truth.” Thus in her 

first book, The Mobility of Labor and Capital, she showed how foreign 

investment in less developed countries can actually raise the 

likelihood of emigration; this went against established notions that 

such investment would retain potential emigrants. In her second book, The Global City, she showed how the global 

economy, far from being placeless, has and needs very specific territorial insertions, and that this need is sharpest 

in the case of highly globalized and electronic sectors such as finance; this went against established notions at the 

time that the global economy transcended territory and its associated regulatory umbrellas. In her most recent book, 

Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, she showed that the foundational transformations 

afoot today take place largely inside core and thick national environments; this allows her to explain that some of 

the changes inside liberal states, most evident in the USA but also increasingly in other countries, are not distortions 

or anomalies, but are the result of these foundational transformations inside the state apparatus. Professor Sassen 

has just completed a five-year project for UNESCO on sustainable human settlement for which she set up a network 

of researchers and activists in over 30 countries. She edited Deciphering the Global: Its Spaces, Scales, and Subjects, a 

collection of her doctoral students’ work. She co-edited Digital Formations: New Architectures for Global Order, based 

on a multi-year project sponsored by the Social Science Research Council through its Information Technology and 

International Cooperation Committee, which she chaired. 

Yona Yahav 

Yona Yahav is an Israeli lawyer and politician and currently the 

Mayor of Haifa, Israel. He was born in Haifa during the period of 

the British Mandate. Mayor Yahav reached the rank of lieutenant 

colonel in the Military Police Corps of the Israel Defense Forces. 

In London, he was secretary-general of the World Union of Jewish 

Students. Mayor Yahav was an advisor to Minister of Transport Gad 

Yaacobi and the spokesman for Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem. 

From 1996 to 1999, he was elected to the Knesset as a member of 

the Labour Party and served as the chairman of the subcommittee 

for banking. In 2003, he was elected Mayor of Haifa on a joint 

Shinui-Greens ticket, having already served as deputy mayor. He is 

also chairman of the Haifa Economic Corporation and previously 

chaired the Haifa International Film Festival organization and the city’s theatre executive. 


Tufts Initiative for Leadership and International Perspectice (TILIP) 

As part of its commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative and to globalize 

its students’ interactions, the Institute for Global Leadership invited 

delegations from eight different countries to participate in this year’s EPIIC 

international symposium. 

The IGL welcomed 38 students from ten international universities to the 

Tufts campus this year. Making this possible were the contributions of 

Robert and JoAnn Bendetson, Father Acnys Derozin, Jane Etish-Andrews, 

Irit Keynan, Sunny Kim, Peter Pang, Edgar Pieterse, Pedro Trujillo, and the 

Tufts Chapter of Engineers Without Borders. 

Below were the visiting delegations: 

CANADA 

St. Joseph’s University 

Gertrude Pang 

CHINA 

Peking University 

Qin Yinxiao, Qiu Xun, Wang Chanjuan, Wang Xuhui (Bill), Xu Peng, 

Yang Xueyi (Kanie), Zhang Siyu, Zhang Yunge (Jenny) 

GUATEMALA 

Francisco Marroquin University 

Maria Andree Abadia, Monica Espana, Mishelle Lemus, Alicia Marroquin 

HAITI 

Université Chrétienne de la Foi & Alliance Française 

Nickson Cherubin 

Université D’Etat D’Haiti 

Rosenie Michel 

Université Polyvalente D’Haiti 

Aldophe Milien 

ISRAEL 

Hebrew University 

Hila Elroy 

56 


SINGAPORE 

National University of Singapore 

Lip Chong Ang, Wai Si Chan, Xin Ci (Heather) Chi, Tian Boon Law, Weixiong Lian, Li Xian (Victoria Anne) Neo, 

Xiu Hao (Willis) Sim, Song Sirui Song, Fay Tan May Wern (Amanda) Tan, Yingzhi Woo 

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Peter Pang, Director, University Scholars Programme 

SOUTH AFRICA 

University of Cape Town 

Raksha Ramdeo Authar, Gwinyai Dzinotyiweyi, Irvin Kinnes, Yolandi Elize Roux 

SOUTH KOREA 

Seoul National University 

Linda Chu, Sujin Eom, Janice Kim, Jihyeon Kim, Inas Lee, Madelyn Lee, Ronald Lee 

Faculty Mentor: Sunny Kim, Director, Global Leadership Center, College of Business Administration 

Two of the delegations also ran small-group discussions during the EPIIC symposium: 

The Other World of China’s Cities – Peking University Delegation 

Chinese cities are becoming iconic examples of development and ‘the future’- 

but there is another world to these cities. The delegation from Peking 

University in Beijing, China has prepared information and research about the 

migrant workers and floating population of China. In this session, the students 

shared their observations and discussed similarities and differences between 

this Chinese reality and analogous systems elsewhere. 

Discussion Questions: 

• What is the residency registration system in Chinese cities and how does this 

resemble similar international systems? 

• What dimensions of slum life in China are familiar? 

• How is education different for Migrant Workers than from the general 

Chinese population? 

• How is the migrant population affected by the global financial crisis? 

The Future of Seoul: U-City? -- Seoul National University Delegation 

Post-Korean War Seoul has seen miraculous growth in technology. In just 40 

years, Seoul has been transformed from a war-torn zone into a global information 

technology hub. Korea’s IT industry in 2007 was ranked behind only the 

United States and Japan in terms of competitiveness, and we can see many 

Korean innovations within the technology industry. What is in store for Korea 

and Seoul in the next ten years regarding information technology? The 

concept of a U-City (ubiquitous city), where virtually all aspects of a city are 

linked to interlinked information systems, may appear to be a science-fiction 

portrayal of a futuristic megacycle. However, Korea has planned and begun to 


uild a U-City within Seoul, striving to turn science fiction into reality. Seoul’s pioneering of this concept will redefine 

the concept of the ‘mega city’ in the future. 

Discussion Questions: 

• How has Seoul been able to become a leader in the technology industry post-war? 

• What characteristics of the city made it conducive to this field in particular, and what challenges has it faced in 

adjusting to its relatively new global status? 

• How can we understand the concept of a U-city in practical terms? 

• Is Seoul the only potential U-city? Who are its main competitors? 

A reaction from one of the Tufts students: 

David Attewell’11 

I could go on at length about the various panelists; which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t. But the truth is that 

meeting and learning the stories of the international students themselves was by far the most eye opening aspect of the 

symposium. I had an incredible conversation with my friend Willis from Singapore. I knew next to nothing about his city, 

and basically once he started to paint a picture of Singaporean society, it completely shook my outlook on systems of 

government. 

He painted a picture of what seemed to be a truly benevolent dictatorship; an authoritarian state that saw peaceful 

transfers of power and took care of the poor and ethnic minorities. Over the course of my political science education, I 

had come to the conclusion that in all dictatorships, all resources were shunted to cronies of the leadership and that noninfluential 

factions such as low-income and minority groups were suppressed. And yet, in Singapore, the poorest people 

live in functional apartments, and have access to free, quality medical care and efficient transportation. Universities are 

public and accessible by all. 

It struck me that, for all I had heard about the superiority of democracy and the corruption of dictatorships, the Singaporeans 

have been successful in building a far more equitable and sustainable society in many ways than we have. 

All of this is not to say that I am suddenly an advocate of dictatorship. The conversation simply showed, however, that 

equitable and just outcomes can be achieved in a variety of different ways, and that our system is not the only effective 

one going. 

Meeting the South African delegation also impressed upon me the diversity, not only 

between delegations, but also within them. I’m not sure if this was a deliberate act of 

the delegation itself, but essentially represented within that delegation was a fascinating 

racial, socioeconomic, and cultural cross-section of South African society. Yolandi 

was a white Afrikaaner, Irving (photo, left) was a Colored man from the Mannenburg 

projects (one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world), and Gwinyai was a 

black Zimbabwean immigrant. Having had a chance to talk to each of them at length, 

I was able to discern that each of them had a very different viewpoint on the development 

of South Africa and had differing political and academic priorities within the 

symposium itself. I’m hoping to get a chance to go to the world cup in South Africa in 2010 so I’ll have a chance to visit 

them all. 

58 


One of the outcomes of the visit, which the IGL hopes will be expanded with other delegations in the future, is a 

summer research project enacted by the students from Peking University and funded through the IGL’s Empower 

program. Below is an overview of the project: 

Household Registration System in China 

Through research in the first period, we have a general idea of the historical evolution, influence and reform trend of 

the HRS. It is said that after 2020, the separation between agricultural and non-agricultural residents will no longer 

exist. However, whether the city can provide for the welfare for those migrant workers who have transferred into city 

dwellers in the short-term and whether the city can accommodate the flood of rural-urban migration will be the key 

factors that decide the success of the HRS reform. Our preliminary research was based on secondary data, which is 

general and unspecific. We need more first-hand data to better support our study. So this summer, we will conduct 

a field study in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Through deep research of this typical example, we hope to find out the 

key factors in the HRS reform and predict the future trend of it. 

Why Zhengzhou, Capital Henan Province? 

Zhengzhou implemented HRS reform in 2003 and the dual registration system was unified. However, it raised significant 

chaos. The government had to suspend the reform process and return to the separate registration system 

between the agricultural and non-agricultural population. We do not know if the unpleasant situation has improved 

now and whether a new round of HRS reform is being put on the agenda. In our field survey, we plan to explore the 

changes and improvements after former unsuccessful reform in Zhenzhou city and its neighboring rural areas. 

HRS reform in Zhenzhou is a representative experiment. Deep investigation into this case is meaningful both academically 

and practically. Another reason that we chose Henan is that rural areas there are at different levels of 

development and could provide different samples for our study. In villages near Zhenzhou, peasants are living a 

comfortably-off life, similar to other rural areas in the middle of China. But in western areas of Henan, such as villages 

in Luoyang, poverty still exists. In the south, areas are well developed owing to the advantageous position near 

Wuhan, the most developed city in middle China. These sites of different degrees of development will enable us to 

talk to people who may respond differently to the HRS reform. Data collected there would help to us predict the 

migration trend in the future. 


INSPIRE 

This year’s INSPIRE Fellow was James Henry, who had participated in last year’s EPIIC symposium. Mr. Henry is the 

author of The Blood Bankers: Tales from the Global Underground Economy as well as numerous articles in The New York 

Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The New Republic, The Washington Post, Harpers, The Washington Monthly, 

Fortune, Business Week, Newsweek, and Time. He is the former Chief Economist at McKinsey & Company; Co-Chair, The 

Tax Justice Network (US); and founder of both the Sag Harbor Group (www.sagharbor.com) and Submerging Markets 

(www.submergingmarkets.com). Mr. Henry’s unique, first-person approach to investigative economics, and his expertise 

in offshore banking, have taken him to more than 50 developing countries. He was hired by the Government of 

Paraguay to help that country recover the assets stolen by General Stroessner. 

Beginning last summer, Mr. Henry worked with six students 

to explore a variety of topics, including tax haven banks and 

the trafficking of heroin from Afghanistan to Baltimore, MD, 

with a strong focus on the USB banking scandal. The students 

conducted research in Fort Lauderdale, FL and attended 

US Senate hearings in Washington, DC. They contributed 

research to several articles, including “Attack of the Global 

Pirate Bankers” in Nation Magazine. 

Following the summer, Mr. Henry returned to the IGL during the spring semester to teach a new course “The Global 

Financial Crisis: A Seminar in Investigative Economics.” The IGL co-sponsored the course with The Fletcher School’s 

Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy. The course immersed students in the theory and practice of investigative 

economics, using the continuing global financial crisis as an opportunity for students to assess the importance 

of key technical factors responsible for the crisis; develop a critical perspective on the long-term structural and ideological 

factors and roots of financial crises; and apply investigative economics tools and methods to test hypotheses 

about these factors. 

Fifteen undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in 

the seminar, attending bi-weekly classes and independent 

research group meetings on US banking regulation, the 

Asian financial situation, and the US housing market. In 

class, the students explored monetary and fiscal policies, 

regulation and mis-regulation, accounting and credit monitoring 

practices, securitization models, derivatives pricing 

and trading systems, and executive compensation schemes. 

The students considered the “development crisis” and foreign 

loans, aid, and investment; financial flight, debt and 

debt relief, and First World lending policies; the role of global banks and the international bank regulation structure 

since Bretton Woods; human capital flights; and other aspects of economic globalization to date. The seminar concluded 

with a forward glance at the outlook for the world economy and the presentation of the students’ independent 

empirical research. 

60 


In addition to Mr. Henry’s expertise in the field, the class benefitted from guest lecturers, including: Michael Karsch, 

founder and portfolio manager of Karsch Capital Management, LP, a global long/short equity hedge fund adviser located 

in New York City; Professor Phil Uhlmann, Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Business at The Fletcher 

School and Assistant Professor of Finance at Bentley College; David Puth, director of State Street Bank’s investment 

research, securities finance, and trading activities worldwide; Professor Harvey Cox, Hollis Professor of Divinity at the 

Harvard Divinity School, and among others. 

The class was also involved in investigative work of its own. One group of students did a presentation on the political 

influence of banking, exploring the role of lobbyists, lawyers, and trade associations that banks hire in order to 

pursue their interests. The group looked at this topic through Goldman Sachs, also studying the revolving door phenomenon 

and the company culture. The presentation looked at other relevant ideas within this theme, including case 

studies on SIFMA and the CFMA, and changes in regulation in the last decade. The second group looked at Morgan 

Stanley’s role in the property market in China. It researched Morgan Stanley’s spread in the Chinese real-estate market, 

as well as the resignation of Garth Peterson, the managing director of Morgan Stanley Real Estate, heading its 

China operations. 

While twelve weeks cannot possibly cover the many dimensions of the worst economic crisis the world as seen in 

decades, the seminar built a comprehensive foundation for understanding the economic crisis and how to move 

forward in these trying times. 

Mr. Henry also served as the adviser for the IGL’s Poverty and Power Research Initiative (PPRI) and their research trip 

to the Philippines. 


BUILD 

BUILD had an enormously productive year, unprecedented in its challenges and successes. Working independently is 

an unfamiliar position for the Program, as its projects were NGO-facilitated for six years until this current Guatemala 

initiative began in the 2007-2008 academic year. 

When the original Guatemala team (team of May-June 2008) 

returned from Guatemala, the students knew they wanted 

to continue working with Santa Anita la Unión, the first coffee 

cooperative they had worked at over the summer. The 

people there had impacted them in a profound and lasting 

way. 

Upon return for the fall semester, the group’s sophomore 

leaders, Kathryn Taylor and Mike Niconchuk, discussed 

ideas for a wider program leadership structure, so as to expose 

many new students to BUILD’s work while retaining the passion instilled in the group that participated in the 

summer research trip. 

In September 2008, BUILD conducted an interview process for “Team Leaders,” who would be tasked with the logistical 

planning and prep work for the new team’s trip to Santa Anita. Under this structure, Mike and Kathryn would lead 

the new team selection process and attend new group meetings, but would primarily handle the administrative work 

of BUILD and the planning for the various community development project ideas first pitched in our application for 

a Clinton Global Initiative-University grant application. 

Marcus Cheek and Chloe Rousseau were selected to be the 2009 Team Leaders, based on their performance in Guatemala 

and their interviews in September. Sasha deBeausset, a member of the class of 2012 and a native of Guatemala, 

was asked to work directly with Mike and Kathryn, as she possessed valuable language and cultural skills that would 

facilitate administrative tasks. Mike, Kathryn, Chloe, and Marcus were all responsible for selecting the 2009 Team. 

Upwards of 30 applications were received for the seven available spots. The selection committee interviewed 20 candidates, 

finally choosing a group of four freshmen and three sophomores. 

The new team began meeting over the Fall 2008 semester, selecting readings each week on a particular theme relating 

to Guatemala history/culture. Additionally, students offered presentations on their areas of research: ancient 

Maya land policy and fair trade coffee, respectively. Simultaneously, 

Mike, Kathryn and Sasha worked in weekly meetings with members of 

the original 2008 team to continue to discuss ideas for the larger collaborative 

development projects with Santa Anita. 

Mike and Kathryn pursued as much feedback as possible in regards 

to the potential projects in Santa Anita. Much of the work envisioned 

would not be able to be carried out by BUILD, since the students were 

not experts in agriculture, so they looked for an NGO collaboration. By 

62 


mid-November, the Exec Team had decided, after numerous 

correspondences with the board of Santa Anita and employees 

at Café Conciencia (one of Santa Anita’s buyers) to 

focus on four major areas of need (in order of importance as 

stated by the community): production, administration, technology, 

and debt/financing issues. The fifth category, ecotourism, 

was not to be added until much later, in January. 

In looking for organizations to which BUILD could contract 

some of the training programs being envisioned, the students 

received a recommendation from Omar Mejia, former 

Ministry of Agriculture employee and current employee of 

Café Conciencia. He recommended they look into the microenterprise foundation, FUNDAP. FUNDAP had worked 

with Nueva Alianza, a community BUILD had visited the summer before, and was known for doing quality work with 

many farms. Sasha sent a draft of our joint BUILD-Santa Anita “Community Development Plan” (CDP) to the heads of 

FUNDAP, who replied with initial interest, and later, in late November, with a detailed proposal as to what elements of 

the CDP they could facilitate. BUILD sent the proposal to the board of Santa Anita, who responded with interest. Both 

parties agreed to pursue a relationship with FUNDAP. Funding was obviously the primary concern, as the amount of 

plants the students envisioned buying was valued at several thousand dollars; the high number of plants is necessary 

to accomplish the goal of doubling Santa Anita’s production in ten years. 

Outside of the nascent relationship with FUNDAP, all of the other projects (e.g. technology) required a follow-up visit 

to Santa Anita. 

The second trip to Santa Anita was scheduled to take place in January of 2009, over winter break. However, the 

security situation at the time prevented the full team from going. Two members, both with family ties in Guatemala, 

went unofficially to maintain ties and demonstrate continuity with Santa Anita. 

The two students were able to work out the details of the agreement with FUNDAP during their two-day stay at Santa 

Anita. Members of Santa Anita participated in the negotiations so as to maximize transparency and community involvement. 

Construction timelines for the seed nursery and planting schedules for the 20,000 plants were created 

at the meetings. Also, the ideas of technology and refinancing projects were discussed with the board of Santa Anita. 

Mike (above photo, speaking to community members) and Sasha’s successful trip was indicative of the progress BUILD 

was making with the community and with NGO FUNDAP. Both parties were impressed and receptive to the work that 

BUILD had done thus far. The crucial element lacking was funding. FUNDAP intended to begin the 40-week training 

program in late January, despite the fact that BUILD, at that time, did not have a dime to its name. Training had to 

begin at that time in order to follow the cycle of coffee harvesting. 

For this reason, in early January Mike and Kathryn began applying for sources of funding both within and outside of 

Tufts to raise the approximate $20,000 necessary to make the entire project a reality. The two main funding sources 

BUILD targeted at Tufts were Projects for Peace, a $10,000 prize that BUILD applied for last year, and the Tisch Active 

Citizen Summer grant. By the end of January, BUILD had received both of these awards, bringing the group’s total 


funds to $13,714 in just a few weeks. Kathryn had also been in contact with Sam Snyder, the executive director of 

Pura Vida coffee, a non-profit organization that has worked with Santa Anita in the past. Through this connection, 

BUILD began a fundraiser selling Pura Vida coffee and raised over $500. Sam Snyder also promised $2,000 to BUILD 

initially, and later increased this amount to $6,000. Marcus, a member of Theta Delta Chi, arranged for BUILD to 

become the beneficiary of the fraternity’s annual “Moustachio Bashio” fundraiser, which raised over $1,300. The IGL 

has also pledged $2,000 in support through its Empower program. BUILD raised over $20,000 to pay for the entire 

project and the team’s travel expenses. 

Throughout the spring semester Mike and Kathryn led a course through the Experimental College for all students 

currently involved in BUILD. The course has included guest professors from the economics, political science, anthropology, 

and history departments that discussed different aspects of sustainable development. When there is no guest 

lecturer, course time is spent working on different aspects of the Community Development Plan. 

As the January trip had to be postponed, BUILD leaders looked to reschedule the trip for spring break. Funding for the 

trip came from the IGL and Dean Glaser’s Undergraduate Research Fund, and the new team spent seven full days in 

Santa Anita. The trip was a resounding success, in terms of realizing the Community Development Plan and furthering 

the relationship with FUNDAP and members of Santa Anita and in accomplishing a significant amount of individual 

student research. 

BUILD returned to Santa Anita from May 21-June 18 this summer to realize the Community Development Plan and 

continue research in the community. BUILD’s Projects for Peace proposal included funding 20,000 new coffee plants 

and constructing a 25,000 plant capacity seed nursery for coffee seedlings to raise production levels, funding administrative 

and organizational training, and installing internet and paying for the first year of service. FUNDAP is 

providing agricultural expertise, facilitating the trainings, and facilitating the purchase of plants and other materials. 

Many of these projects, with a few minor changes and additions, were realized during BUILD’s four-week stay in the 

community. Because Catholic Relief Services is in the process of constructing a seed nursery in the community, BUILD 

reallocated the resources intended for the nursery to purchase organic fertilizer that will help ensure the survival 

and quality of the plants. BUILD was also able to help community members dig holes for the new coffee plants and 

witness the delivery of the first 10,000 of the new plants, with the other 10,000 delivered in the weeks after BUILD’s 

departure. 

Also, in addition to installing internet, BUILD was able to establish a computer center in the community, complete 

with six donated computers and a printer. BUILD students spent two weeks teaching basic computer skills to members 

of the community, appointed seven youth to staff the center, and hired a local computer technician that will visit the 

center weekly to continue trainings and fix any technical problems. This center will serve as a micro-business; users 

are charged a small fee, which will go towards paying for internet services after the first year as well as maintenance 

and upkeep costs. 

BUILD students also used GPS to map the trails on the farm and recorded information about local flora and fauna, and 

this information will be used to make field guides and maps to benefit the community’s small ecotourism program. 

64 


Preparing for 20,000 new coffee plants 


Creating the Computer Center, from start to finish 

66 



68 


NIMEP 

Over the course of this academic year, NIMEP has become a more comprehensive, structured, and active organization 

here on campus. At the end of the last school year, it was decided that in order to fulfill its stated goals, the organization 

had to create and solidify an Executive Leadership Board, which it did in September. Programming highlights 

include the fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank in March, the online publication of the fourth volume of 

NIMEP Insights, and a dramatic increase in the number of on-campus events sponsored by the organization. 

NIMEP greatly increased its student base, drawing in a number of new students – especially sophomores – who have 

proven dedicated to seeing NIMEP flourish. Many of these students are now filling roles on the newly-established exec 

board and promise to be a veritable well of dynamic leadership for the next few years. As NIMEP seeks to build a lasting 

institutional framework these incoming students will be invaluable to creating a stable organization. 

In this past year, the area in which the most progress and original thinking has been demonstrated is in the realm of 

on-campus events and activities. The standard weekly dialogues occurred consistently and many topics – from the 

ever-changing situation in Israel and the West Bank to Iraq to the uncertain future of Iranian-US relations – were 

discussed in-depth and a diversity of viewpoints were voiced and debated. 

NIMEP also hosted a number of public events. The first was the group’s presentation of its findings from the Syria 

research trip. Students Khaled al-Sharikh, David Mou, and Vicki Gilbert spoke to a gathering of Tufts students in an 

event that also included the intellectual context provided by Political Science Professor Malik Mufti and Fletcher 

Professor Vali Nasr. In another event, NIMEP hosted representatives of the OneVoice organization – a group that 

attempts to prepare both Israeli and Palestinian society for peace. They presented their group’s methodology and 

on-the-ground attempts to reach a solution. 

In one of the most emotionally charged events of the year, NIMEP co-sponsored (along with the Arab Students Association, 

Friends of Israel, Hillel, the Muslim Students Association, the Office of the Chaplain, and Pathways) a 

groundbreaking dialogue session focusing on the effects of the war Gaza war in December 2008 and January 2009. 

Moderated by Professor Mufti, the gathering was attended by more than 70 students, illustrating the student body’s 

ongoing interest in Middle East events. 

The online publication of the fourth volume of Insights was an exciting event for NIMEP. A diverse array of research is 

offered in this volume, and four articles in particular – all 

from NIMEP’s 2008 research trip to Syria – are highlighted. 

A significant achievement of this year’s NIMEP was the 

fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank that took 

place over ten days during the university’s spring break. 

Though initially scheduled for winter break, as all NIMEP 

trips traditionally are, the group was forced to postpone 

their visit to the region a mere three days before their anticipated 

departure due to the violence that broke out in 

Gaza and Southern Israel in the last week of 2008. Despite 


this setback, the group used the additional two months to prepare an even more thorough and intellectually demanding 

(as well as intellectually stimulating) research trip. The group was able to meet with twenty-seven individuals 

and experts in various fields as they pursued their research topics. Below are the people they met with: 

Politicians/Government: 

• Yasser Abd Rabbo – Prominent Palestinian politician 

and co-author of The Geneva Initiative 

• Yitzhak Levanon – Former Israeli Ambassador to the 

United Nations 

• Stephan Miller – Aide to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat 

• PLO Negotiations Affairs Department in Ramallah 

• Natan Sharansky – Director of the Andelson Institute 

for Strategic Studies. Former Minister of Housing and 

Construction, Minister of the Interior, and Minister of 

Industry and Trade; Author, The Case For Democracy. 

• Tamir Suhail – Palestinian politician, founder of the 

We All Palestinian party and manager of Al-Quds Open 

University 

• Avshalom Vilan – Former Meretz MK (1999-2009) and co-founder of Peace Now 

Academics: 

• Daniel Bar-Tal - Social psychologist currently serving as Professor of Psychology at Tel Aviv University’s 

School of Education 

• Oren Barak – Senior lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at Hebrew University 

• Ifat Maoz – Professor of Social Psychology at Hebrew University and an evaluator for programs that 

facilitate social encounters between Israelis and Palestinians 

• Ihsan Mustafa – Palestinian water expert 

• Sari Nusseibeh – Prominent Palestinian professor 

and activist who served as the PLO representative 

in Jerusalem in 2001 and 2002 and is the current 

President of al-Quds University (with students left) 

• Gavriel Salomon – Educational psychologist at 

Haifa University specializing in peace education, 

cognition and instruction, and technology in education 

• Elhanan Yakira – Chair of the Philosophy Department 

at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

• Dan Zaslavsky – Former Israeli Water Commissioner in the early 1990s, currently a professor at the 

Technion 

• Eyal Zisser – Head of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies at Tel Aviv University 

Journalists: 

• Shimrit Meir – Arab Affairs Correspondent for Israeli Army Radio 

70 


• Zafrir Rinat – Ha’aretz Correspondent and environmental specialist 

NGOs and Think Tanks: 

• Eldidya Ariel – Representative of “Tzav Pius,” an 

Israeli group that focuses on dialogue and “attentive 

listening” in Israeli society, especially in the 

wake of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 

• Robert Dann – UN Special Coordinator for the 

Peace Process, Head of Regional Affairs 

• Eyal Hareuveni – Btselem researcher 

• Ala Khattib – Co-Principal of the Jerusalem Handin-Hand 

School, a school for both Jewish and Arab- 

Israelis that sponsors bilingual education and social 

encounters 

• Michael Sfard – Legal Advisor for Peace Now 

• Eran Shayson and Calev Ben Dor – at the Reut 

Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit policy group 

designed to provide strategic support to decision 

makers in the Government of Israel 

• Elizabeth Ya’ari – Spokesperson for Friends of 

Earth Middle East, Tel Aviv Office 

Tours/Outings: 

• Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem 

• Tour of East Jerusalem and the Separation Barrier with 

Btselem field worker. 

• Tour of the South Hebron Hills with Breaking the 

Silence 

NIMEP fact-finding trip members and their reflections: 

James Kennedy 

James is currently a Tufts University junior, majoring in Political 

Science, Middle Eastern Studies, and minoring in the Arabic Language. 

He spent this past fall semester with the Tufts-in-Washington 

program studying at American University and interning at the 

American Task Force on Palestine. At Tufts, he is co-chair of NIMEP. 


In January 2008, James traveled with NIMEP to Syria to participate in the annual research trip and published his 

research in the NIMEP Insights journal, “Looking Beyond the Golan Heights: The True Impediments to Syrian-Israeli 

Peace.” While in Washington, he researched and wrote a paper on the impediments to Arab-American advocacy organizations 

titled, “Redrawing the Game Plans: The Arab-American Lobby and The Formation of US Foreign Policy.” 

Topic 

The reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah may appear to blow hot and cold depending on the day, but that 

does not make it a lost cause. James examined the current state of the Palestinian political apparatus, focusing on the 

likelihood of political reconciliation and how this will inevitably affect the peace process. In the wake of the violence 

in Gaza, many believe that Hamas’ single-handed rule simply cannot sustain itself any longer and that a political 

agreement may not be far off. James looked at the question of whether this is wishful thinking or if it reflected the 

situation on the ground; would an agreement operate within the pre-existing framework of the Palestinian political 

system? Ultimately, this is a test of the structure of the Palestinian Authority. The PA may have been conceived in 

such a way as to maintain Yasser Arafat’s political hegemony, so it is unclear if it can truly survive with a more diverse 

group of parties operating within its framework. Many would argue that it failed its major test with Hamas’ legislative 

victory in 2006 quickly leading to a political split and then internal conflict. But was that the final verdict, or is 

there still hope that the Palestinian Authority can truly function as a democratic and representative vehicle for the 

Palestinian people? 

Reflection 

What a difference nine months can make, especially when those months have seen a war and an election. Last summer 

it was possible to find optimists in Israel and people were not afraid to discuss peace with the Palestinians openly. Now, 

after the events in Gaza and the ascension of the Netanyahu - Lieberman government, those people have disappeared 

from the streets. They are either afraid to speak because of their political marginalization or, in light of recent developments, 

they have abandoned their hope and faith in any sort of peace. When nearly every interview you conduct seems 

to conclude with a dismissive eulogy for the two-state solution, it is difficult to maintain your own optimism. When we 

spoke with former Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan, he told us that he had just come from a “meeting of the Israeli Left” and 

they were debating what they should do in light of their electoral defeat. He then asked if we had any suggestions. It was 

clearly asked in jest and yet I do not doubt for a moment that he would have truly been pleased if we had any useful 

advice to offer. 

David Mou 

David Mou is a junior majoring in International Relations and Economics with a focus on Global Conflicts. He is currently 

learning German and spent the past summer interning at the Pentagon. His interest in the Middle East has 

arisen out of a desire to understand the region that is and will remain at the forefront of American foreign policy. He 

is one of the co-chairs of NIMEP and has been an active member since his first year at Tufts. David has been involved 

with the IGL since he was accepted into the 2006 EPIIC Colloquium Global Crises: Governance and Intervention. His 

article on Interagency Cooperation can be found in the forthcoming NIMEP Insights Journal. 

Topic 

Ever since Yitzhak Rabin’s decision to make peace with Arafat’s PLO there have been few major breakthroughs in the 

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the efforts of President Clinton. David examined the role of leadership in peace 

processes in order to determine to what degree is progress towards peace a product of individuals, conditions on 

72 


the ground, or global factors. His paper will address questions such as: Can a few courageous individuals at the right 

time and right place bring about the elusive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or is the region destined to 

remain tense and divided? To what extent are political leaders the gatekeepers to peace? David sought to gain a better 

understanding of the impediments to peace in order to determine the effects of powerful individuals in shaping 

the course of history. 

Reflection 

The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine is dire though not intractable. I believe that the major inhibitors of 

peace lie not in the underlying situation whether right of return for Palestinians, water rights, settlements, etc but rather 

out of the actors themselves. Any solution in the region will require courageous leadership both on the Israeli and Palestinian 

sides that is willing to embrace the long-term consequences of the ongoing conflict and the current realities on 

the ground. There is an inverse relationship between those with the ability to make peace and those that have a desire 

to make peace. In Israel this is manifested in a security dilemma where the Israeli right can justify any action as being 

in the interest of national security and the Israeli left is perceived to be unable to protect the citizens of Israel through 

negotiations and the peace process. On the Palestinian side, Hamas gains in popularity as it portrays itself as the only 

defender of the Palestinian people, able to undermine all previous negotiations. Fatah, on the other side, faces a credibility 

crisis much like the Israeli left. Fatah cannot continue justifying non-violent negotiations without tangible progress 

on the ground. It feels the pressure posed by Hamas and the Palestinian people view Hamas as the liberators of Gaza. 

All is not lost. The recent appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy to the conflict as well as the Obama administration’s 

understanding of the scapegoat status that the conflict has around the region are signs of hope. A strong American 

push towards peace will be crucial to any future resolution but will not be enough. Real progress and change will require 

courageous leadership from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. Either an Israeli from the right must embrace the peace 

process like Menachem Begin or an Israeli from the left must emerge with the proper security credentials to push peace as 

with Yitzhak Rabin. On the Palestinian side, Hamas must recognize Israel, change its charter, and recognize the previous 

negotiations. Fatah must correct the corruption and begin providing for the basic needs of the Palestinian people both 

in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Patricia Letayf 

Patricia Letayf is a sophomore from Salem, NH. She is majoring in International Relations with a concentration in 

the Middle East and s minor in Economics. Because both her parents were raised in the Middle East, she is interested 

in studying Lebanon and the impact this small country has on its border countries—Israel and Syria. In addition to 

participating in NIMEP, Patricia is on the boards of Pangea and the Catholic Community at Tufts and is currently planning 

an after-school reading program for fourth and fifth graders at the Columbus School in Medford. 

Topic 

During the trip, Patricia researched Israel’s relationship with Lebanon and the way the relationship has changed after 

the 2006 Lebanon War. She was motivated by many questions plaguing her, namely, how would the relationship 

between Israel and Lebanon need to change in order for the two states to achieve mutual peace? Israel faces many 

obstacles to reaching peace with Lebanon, including the Syrian influence on the Lebanese government, Hezbollah’s 

military and political role in Lebanon, and the question of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon. 


Reflection 

The first few days we were in Israel, I was very averse to Jerusalem. It was the first time I had been in a foreign place with 

an unfamiliar culture, and the fact that I could not speak the language made it more difficult for me to assimilate. The 

country that I had been reading about for months was finally coming alive before me, and I had some trouble synthesizing 

the physical reality of the conflict with the literature and the commentary that I had been exposed to. Before arriving 

I envisioned Israel as a place where the conflict had overtaken the lives of both the Israelis and Palestinians, and this trip 

simultaneously proved and disproved my assumption. 

After landing in Jerusalem, we took a bus, and I sat next to a twenty-three year old Israeli, Sivan, a university student and 

former Israeli Defense Forces soldier. Within minutes of beginning the discussion, I inquired about her experience in the 

military, and she explained to me that during her service, she evicted settlers from their homes in Gaza. A few days later, 

we met Abu Ahmed, a Palestinian in Har Homa who lost his land because of the construction of settlements. He and his 

nephews now live in a makeshift home that he built himself. With personal narratives like this one, many Israelis and 

Palestinians made it clear that it was time to end the conflict, but as I heard these stories, I began to lose hope in finding 

a solution because I was unsure how these repeated negotiations would reconcile the needs of both sides. 

Surprisingly, my opinion changed after eating two meals later in the week, lunch with a Palestinian family in Ramallah 

and dinner with an Israeli family living on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The families invited us into their homes where we 

ate similar foods, played games with the children, drank tea, and had non-political discussions. Our experiences at both 

homes were eerily similar, and when we returned to the hostel after eating dinner with the Israeli family, I realized that 

before coming to Israel, I had been quick to assume that the conflict caused the Israelis and Palestinians to live different 

lives, whereas in reality, even though a religion or language may often separate them, a common culture and similar 

values also bind these groups together. 

Maryssa Cook-Obregon 

This is Maryssa’s first year at Tufts; she transferred from Mount Holyoke College. She is a junior majoring in International 

Relations and her thematic concentration is on the Middle East. She was born in the United States and has 

primarily grown up and lived in western Massachusetts. This has been interspersed with short periods of living in 

Lima, Peru. Her most recent visit to Peru was in 2007, when she spent three months working with an NGO. Maryssa’s 

first language is Castilian Spanish and she is fluent in English. She has a basic knowledge of French and she studied 

Arabic for one year. 

Topic 

Maryssa’s proposal dealt with establishing accurate statistics regarding the contentious water issue in Israel and 

the Palestinian Territories. Water is scarce in this region, and Israel’s development into a first-world country since 

1948 has exacerbated this problem by creating a high demand for water in unsustainable agricultural and industrial 

processes. Industrialization has also caused the incorporation of chemical hazards into water systems in the area. In 

her meetings, Maryssa attempted to have the officials establish the status of water in their area as well as any plans 

to secure water in the future. In terms of delving into the socio-economic-health issues of water, Maryssa organized 

meetings with Israeli and Palestinian NGOs that work on the ground and are most aware of the consequences of 

scarce and polluted water. 

74 


Reflection 

The recent NIMEP trip to Israel and the West Bank proved to be fruitful beyond the accumulation of research materials. 

By being in the region and getting acquainted with cities and cultures, we were able to experience the various emotional 

currents that pervade the area. Jerusalem, in particular, is infested with strong feelings that were easily perceived 

throughout the city. Areas that one would expect to be clogged with palpable feeling were certainly the religious sites. At 

these locations, however, the sensations that were felt were simply not of fervor, euphoria or religiosity. Deep tension, 

interspersed with bouts of profound suspicion and fear, were clearly felt at these places. This special amalgam was not 

limited to holy sites; it was experienced throughout the city. 

Amit Paz 

Amit is a sophomore and is pursuing a double major in international relations and political science at Tufts University. 

Amit became involved with NIMEP during his freshman year after exploring different options regarding his interest in 

the realm of Middle Eastern affairs. Amit is an Israeli citizen and is deeply committed to trying to promote dialogue, 

mutual understanding, and respect amongst those who have a desire to see progress in the peace process. 

Topic 

Amit’s research topic confronts a mixture of humane and institutional obstacles to the peace process in the form of 

the growing extremism exhibited by settlers in the West Bank and the Rightist movement in general. Amit tried to 

identify the forces behind this trend, the effect this might have on the relationship between the settlers and the government, 

and by extension, the effects this will have on the peace process. 

Reflection 

If you look back at the peace negotiations taking place between Israelis and Palestinians, you can see that there are a few 

core issues over which the two sides are failing to meet on common ground: the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the 

future of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the borders of a Palestinian state, water issues, just to name a 

few. If you ask people in Israel what they think is the biggest obstacle to peace, they will say it is Palestinian terrorists. If 

you ask Palestinians why they keep attacking Israelis, they will say it is because Israel is the Occupier. The occupation is 

in no way more visible and penetrating than through the continuation and expansion of the Israeli settlement enterprise. 

The failure to prevent its creeping growth is destroying Palestinian trust in the Israeli commitment to peace, emboldening 

extremists and undermining moderates, and diminishing the prospect of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state in the 

West Bank. All of this serves to erode the foundation of the two-state solution, thereby condemning the region to stay 

deadlocked in an exhaustive cycle of violence and tragedy. It is for this reason that I focused my research on the settlement 

enterprise and its effects on the peace process. 

Fouad M. Tyler Shami 

Fouad M. Tyler Shami was born in the United States in 1986. He is currently an undergraduate at Tufts University 

majoring in international relations, Middle Eastern studies, and peace and justice studies. At Tufts, he is the executive 

director of Banaa: The Sudan Educational Empowerment Network, co-chair of the Program in International Relations’ 

Director’s Leadership Council (DLC), and the secretary of the Kappa Chapter of the Zeta Psi Fraternity of North 

America, Inc. He has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and recently returned from Kuwait City where 

he interned in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under H.E. Sheikh Jassim al-Mubaraki and worked as a research assistant 

at the Gulf University for Science and Technology. Tyler received the 2008 Tufts’ SCUSA Scholarship to attend the 

senior conference at West Point. 


Topic 

Tyler’s research project focused on formulating a progressive approach to the prospects for Palestinian economic 

and human development in the wake of the construction of Israel’s security wall in the West Bank. Examining the 

interplay between Israeli security and Palestinian development, Tyler sought to produce a comprehensive estimation 

of whether or not current Israeli security policy toward the occupied territories, coupled with the socioeconomic and 

political realities on the ground, could ever provide for a viable Palestinian state. While in Israel and the West Bank, 

he sought every opportunity to travel through Israeli security checkpoints and see the wall firsthand. 

Reflection 

I consider my participation in the NIMEP fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank to have been one of the best 

and most enriching experiences of my life. Traveling to the nucleus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conducting field 

interviews with key regional actors provided me with the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the issues and bear 

witness to the realities on the ground that are too often lost while studying abroad. Whether trekking to remote Palestinian 

villages in the south of Hebron or stopping by the Gilad Shalit memorial tent across from the Israeli Prime Minister’s 

office, the trip was full of opportunities to immerse oneself in the conflict. 

Hannah Shefsky 

Hannah Shefsky is a sophomore at Tufts University, pursuing a double major in Peace and Justice Studies and religion. 

She is a member of a number of on-campus clubs, including NIMEP, Tufts Pathways Interfaith Initiative, and the Jackson 

Jills a cappella group, of which she is the musical director. She is particularly interested in interfaith dialogue and 

coexistence work, Middle Eastern languages and culture, women and religion, world music. 

Topic 

As a research topic, Hannah looked at the network of interfaith and coexistence programs for Jews and Arabs in Israel/ 

Palestine. She explored the varieties of programs that already exist, what strategies are being used, what sort of opposition 

is being faced, and what results are being achieved. In addition, she took note of what programs seem to be 

the most effective, what could be done to gain more recognition, and to what extent can these programs succeed in 

influencing the political realities and the day-to-day struggles that both Arabs and Jews face. 

Reflection 

Jews all over the world would say they love Israel, myself included. But there’s love and then there’s blind devotion, and 

until I spent ten days in the region exposing myself to the real, tangible truths of life for Palestinians under occupation, 

I never fully understood the extent of what the international Jewish community has failed to acknowledge. 

True as it was, this realization was certainly a challenging one to face, and it sent me spinning into a world of internal 

struggles. The realities before me left me stunned, angered, terrified, ashamed, and moved all at once. One second I 

would find myself so frustrated that I would begin to question Israel’s very right to exist, while the next I would feel the 

need to adamantly defend its actions, or at least its people. I wondered, as a strongly identified Jew, did I have a certain 

obligation to defend the Jewish homeland? How could anyone expect me to truly love a country that treated another 

people with such disregard? Was it even possible, given the realities on the ground, to be both a Zionist and a leftist human 

rights supporter? In other words, could I find a way to maintain a balance, both a love for Israel and a disapproval 

of its treatment of the Palestinian people? 

76 


These questions overwhelmed me, often bringing me to tears. I certainly cannot claim to have all the answers just yet, 

but I do know that in order for the current situation to move forward, the Jewish community must wake up and accept 

the difficult truth, and it has now become my responsibility to aid in that process. 

Over the course of the duration of this academic year and the upcoming summer, the students will be synthesizing 

the massive amounts of research material they accumulated into cohesive and professional-grade academic papers 

and reports. These will be published in the fifth volume of NIMEP Insights, which will be released at the end of the 

Fall 2009 semester. 

NIMEP looks forward to the coming year where it will build upon the gains made this year to create a robust framework 

to further educate and challenge the student body at Tufts and the NIMEP members. The group will continue 

its efforts of on campus education by continuing its weekly dialogue sessions and on campus events. It is currently 

working on the fifth installment of NIMEP’s Insights and is beginning to plan for its next fact-finding mission. Next 

year, the group hopes to put together a symposium on whether Israel can remain a Jewish and Democratic state as it 

faces a growing Palestinian population. 


EXPOSURE 

This year, EXPOSURE grew in size and in breadth, remaining dedicated to its core mission of exploring and creating 

awareness of global human rights issues through photojournalism, documentary photography, writing, and other 

forms of media. Weekly meetings were enhanced to include more content, education, and training. The group added 

new events, including a weekend immersion workshop and casual group photo shoots. It ran two workshops that 

produced high-quality and thought-provoking work. With new leadership and a large group of new members, this 

was a year of change. EXPOSURE heads into the next school year with a large group of dedicated members who have 

the tools to produce high-quality, meaningful work. 

The weekly meetings were a chance to connect new and veteran Exposure students to the IGL by offering more technical 

workshops to students new to journalism and documentary work, more exposure to the work of professionals 

and Exposure alumni, and chances to work with group leaders on photography and writing outside of the meetings. 

Students were encouraged to join other IGL groups and take their Exposure skills with them, to practice outside of the 

group, and to engage in regular group discussions of issues relevant to photography, journalism, and the coverage of 

human rights issues. 

EXPOSURE held tech workshops on the use of DSLR cameras, digital workflow, Photoshop editing, interviewing and 

writing, and basic video. Discussions ranged from the roots of photojournalism in Walker Evans’ and Dorothea Lange’s 

FSA photography, to how documentary photography differs in content and intent from art photography. Throughout 

the year, members presented their work to each other for discussion and feedback. 

In early October, Tufts alumnus, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and former INSPIRE Fellow Jim Macmillan came 

to an Exposure meeting to present his work and to discuss the possibility of mentoring a local workshop over winter 

break. Jim’s photojournalism, special insight into the traumatic nature of his work, and experience with new media 

kept the group talking until almost midnight. At the end of the month, he returned for a weekend immersion workshop 

that was mandatory for members of the Boston workshop and open to everyone else. 

EXPOSURE has also made new contacts with industry professionals this year, including John Kifney of the New York 

Times, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Teru Kuwayama, a photojournalist who has worked in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

EXPOSURE engaged in a number of events and activities outside of weekly meetings. The group assisted Child’s Right 

to Thrive, a group of Tufts graduate students in Child Development, and Kids With Cameras with an exhibition in 

preparation for a fundraiser to promote children’s welfare around the world. This allowed EXPOSURE members to 

meet Avijit Halder, whose work was featured in Born into Brothels, laying the foundation for potential collaboration 

between Avijit and the group. 

The students mounted two exhibitions in the Slater Concourse of the Tufts University Art Gallery. The exhibitions 

were an opportunity to show the work from the program’s two professionally led workshops from the summer, one 

in Cambodia led by VII Photojournalist Gary Knight and Journalist Mort Rosenblum and one in northern Uganda in 

collaboration with the Aftermath Project. 

78 


The program also cosponsored the IGL event, “Reporting a Dangerous World,” which was the Boston launch of the 

new dispatches journal and introduced the new online international news group, GlobalPost. The event was widely 

attended, both by EXPSOURE members and other students in the Tufts community. Afterwards, a smaller group of 

EXPOSURE students had the chance to spend time with the panelists, discussing their work and future collaborations. 

The group continued its annual New York Trip, visiting the VII Photo Agency in Brooklyn and meeting with VII director 

Stephen Mayes, which provided an introduction to the business side of photojournalism and to understanding 

what kind of work is expected from today’s photojournalists. The group also visited the International Center for 

Photography and the Battlespace Gallery in Brooklyn, which featured an exhibition on photography from Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

EXPSOURE’s two workshops this year were held in Gulu, Northern Uganda and in Boston. 

The Uganda workshop was a collaboration with the Aftermath Project and was led by photojournalist Sara Terry, the 

founder and director of Aftermath, and by National Geographic photographer, Stephen Alvarez. They were assisted 

by Fletcher School student Claire Putzeys who has worked extensively in northern Uganda. The students worked with 

fixer-translators from an NGO called IYEP, Information for Youth Empowerment. IYEP facilitates the reintegration of 

former child soldiers back into the community, and so the relationship that developed between the students and the 

translators added greatly to their overall experience and ability to more deeply understand the conflict. Below are 

summaries of the students’ stories (audio slideshows are available on the IGL web site under Exposure): 

Returning Home Again: Displacement and Renewal in Northern Uganda  

Jeff Beers’09 

The 22-year long conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda has resulted in the displacement of 

well over a million Acholi people from their homes, forcing them into cramped “protected villages” where many have 

lived for the duration of the war. Now, with a ceasefire in place, many Acholi are returning home again, and working 

to restart the cycle of tradition and sustenance farming that has defined their culture for generations. However, after 

over twenty difficult years away, a question arises: what ‘home’ will the Acholi be returning to? 


Forgiveness and Reconciliation after War  

Kelsey Bell’11 

The war in Uganda is notorious for its duration, often called “Africa’s longest running war.” By the time I learned of 

this war it had been going on for more than twenty years. On the day I submitted my essay detailing the history of the 

conflict for this workshop I had just turned twenty years old. While I was growing up, the children fighting in this war 

were growing up. When I was in grade school children the same age as I was were abducted from their homes and 

schools and given a new education in murder. During the war there had been many attempts at peace talks, both by 

individuals and by the government, but most failed miserably. The difference now is that the quell in fighting over 

80 


that last few years has opened up dialogue on what it means to bring justice and lasting peace to this region. Currently 

there is a large debate surrounding the extent to which traditional methods of justice and western methods of 

justice should be implemented (if at all) to deal with the conflict. While this discussion has yet to be concluded, many 

of those living in Acholiland have expressed their preference for the use of the traditional methods that emphasize 

truth and forgiveness to create restorative rather than retributive justice and lasting peace. 

Women of Northern Uganda 

Nora Chovanec’09 

In an area like northern Uganda where family is the most important part of life and the decades old conflict has 

in large part centered around the Lord’s Resistance Army’s destruction of the familial unit, women are the ones 

who struggled to keep the family and the culture together. Women bear the brunt of domestic labor—the cooking, 

cleaning, washing, and tending to the home, and take on the majority of child rearing responsibilities—nurturing, 

shaping, and showing them what it means to be Acholi. Women also share a large portion of the economic stress, 

as they are the ones who spend more time tending the land, harvesting the crops, and preparing and selling goods 

at the market. My project explored the daily lives of women in post-conflict Northern Uganda and centers upon one 

thirteen-year-old girl from the internally displaced persons camp, Palenga. 

Sunday Mass at Pabbo Camp 

Tim Fitzsimons’10 

This project documented Sunday Mass at Pabbo Camp, an internally displaced persons camp in Northern Uganda 

near the Sudanese Border. Pabbo remains Uganda’s largest IDP camp even though the conflict with the Lord’s Resistance 

Army has ceased. 


Home Grown: A North Ugandan NGO Offers Home-grown Solutions in Internationally-dominated Reconstruction 

Efforts 

Sean Smith 

The Institute for Youth Empowerment Program, or IYEP, is a Gulu NGO created by northern Ugandans. In a reconstruction 

landscape dominated by heavily-funded international organizations, this small, local NGO finds footing by offering 

an intimate understanding of Acholi culture and values. From assisting in reconciliation between communities 

and child soldiers, to providing agricultural supplies to rebuild sustainable villages, to paying tuition fees for promising 

young Ugandans, IYEP offers Ugandan solutions to Ugandan challenges. 

Photos: Top Left, Senior Jeff Beers in Uganda; Bottom Left, Senior 

Nora Chovanec in Uganda; Top, Photographers Stephen Alvarez 

(left) and Sara Terry (right) meeting wih students in Uganda 

82 


The Spring 2009 semester began in Dorchester, on the streets of Back Bay, and in the Harvard Square T Station. With 

its first-ever local workshop, EXPOSURE Boston provided eight students with the opportunity to report on urban issues 

in their own city under the mentorship of Jim MacMillan, whose expertise comes from 17 years as a photographer for 

The Philadelphia Daily News and two years as Photo Editor for the Associated Press in Iraq. Focusing locally was in 

many ways a greater challenge to students than reporting internationally and the result is a collection of work that 

documents several facets of life in Boston. The issues that the students explored were the impact of the economic 

crisis on the city’s poor, understanding Muslim culture in Boston, the future of Chinatown, the impact of the relocation 

and rebuilding of a public housing development, views on graffiti in the city, the lives of street performers, the 

challenges of the fishing industry in Gloucester, and the community of a neighborhood barbershop in Dorchester. 


Erin Baldassari’s barbershop story and photos were published by the Boston Globe on the back page of its City section 

in March 2009, “Shear Haven.” 

84 


Engineers Without Borders (EWB) 

This year, the Tufts chapter of Engineers Without Borders grew tremendously. The number of active members in the 

group has never been so high and the group has four primary projects. The water filtration project in Arada Vieja, El 

Salvador is in its last phase, in which EWB will visit the community one or two more times to ensure the sustainability 

of the system. In addition, the group has begun work in a neighboring community, Porvenir, with the help of the 

same local NGO, Epiligos Charities, to aid in the construction of a water distribution system for which the community 

expressed a strong need. During winter break, a team of EWB members visited the community to perform a preliminary 

assessment that will be described in the sample journal entries below. Other projects early in development 

include a project in Uganda and a project in Haiti. 

Over the fall and spring semesters, the group held weekly meetings to plan for upcoming trips, share ideas, and discuss 

design options. In the spring, EWB brought students from Haiti came for the EPIIC symposium and to meet with 

members of EWB to discuss options in Haiti. Tufts EWB also held a workshop during the spring semester to share the 

students’ knowledge of slow sand filtration with other EWB chapters in the region, including chapters from Harvard, 

MIT, Northeastern, and Boston University. The workshop was a great success and sparked an effort to connect the 

EWB chapters in the region. 

The trip over winter break to El Salvador was a great success as the team assessed the situation in Porvenir and finished 

construction in Arada Vieja. The following is a sample of journal entries from one of the traveling members: 

Sunday, 1/4/09 

Porvenir, is a cantone of San Jose Villanueva. A very rough road leads from a neighborhood with a school near the 

highway to the village. The road is very steep and washed out in places, drainage channels across the road give us 

a bumpy ride. About ten minutes brings us to the “meeting tree” – a level crossroad between several paths shaded 

by a large tree with roots convenient for sitting on. This is where the doctors and Habitat house builders meet with 

people, and hopefully so will we. 

We stop and say hello to Domingo, a resident of the community, as we pass his house. He has a well (puzo) behind 

his house, which is shared by much of the community. A little boy and girl come out to inspect us. The girl seems 

healthy, but the boy has a bloated belly and patchy hair that Mike says is from malnutrition. Further up the road we 

visit the home of another community member, Tomas. Down the hill from Tomas’s house is a spring box. Built into 

a hillside ravine, the concrete-block box allows groundwater in from its sandy bottom. Tomas says that there used to 

be more flow from this spring, but the groundwater was disrupted during the 2001 earthquake, and now it is more 

of a trickle. Uphill of the spring box are Tomas’s house with chicken pens and a corn field, both potential pollution 

sources. He says that his latrine is on the far side of his house. The spring box’s walls are raised above the surrounding 

ground surface so that surface flows do not enter. There are sample-sized packets of shampoo on the ground around 

the spring box. The water looks very cloudy but Tomas tells us that this is just dirt and the water is safe to drink. His 

family and one other are the primary users of the spring, but others may come during the dry season. 

Next, we visit Domingo and look at his spring box, which he refers to as a pila. Apparently this is the water source 

for most of the community. Domingo’s spring is located directly beside the Rio Muyapa. The pila is fed by groundwater 

flows and there is a short piece of pipe lined with rocks that may help it to capture additional flow. It is clear 


that the high water mark of the river in this area 

is above the top of the pila, and inundates the 

structure during the wet season. He refers to another 

spring two km away, and seems to say that 

that water may be piped to his pila. 

We have lunch back at Mike’s and then travel to 

our community meeting at Arada Vieja. As we 

arrive, we are greeted casually, which is typical 

of interactions in Arada Vieja. Our meeting is in 

the open-air restaurant. Anna and Amanda do 

the talking, thanking the community for coming 

to the meeting, and we go around the circle and 

everyone, young and old, says their names. And then the discussion begins: 

• The Water Board has already established a user fee for the village. Small families pay $2 and larger families 

pay $3 per month. 

• The RAM pump is typically run for 48 hours to fill up the tanks by the school, then turned off for 24 hours 

to let the intermediate tank refill. 

• There is a second spring, known as David’s spring, which they have connected to the system. The flow from 

this spring is needed to augment the original spring box during the dry season. 

• David’s spring flows down the river channel through flexible plastic tubing, which is not sturdy enough to 

withstand the high river, flows during the wet season. Replacing this tubing with ½” galvanized piping is 

their top priority. 

The Water Board (Alfonso, Don Goyo, Ricardo, and Abel) take us for a tour of the system and to inspect the damage that 

occurred when a tree fell on the 2” galvanized steel 

piping that served the main spring. The RAM pump is 

running, and we can hear it click all along the length of 

the pipe. It cycles about 2-3 times per second. 

Tuesday, 1/6/09 

It takes a little more than half an hour to get to the 

school, where Don Goyo and one of the boys are waiting 

for us. We had refused a ride in the back of a truck 

on the way to the school, but when another came 

along, Don Goyo ushers us aboard without hesitation. 

This is a fun way to travel, standing in the back of a 

truck and ducking under each overhanging branch. 

When the truck reaches its turn-off we get out and walk 

for a bit. Anna teaches me “polvo” for dust and “sucio” 

for dirty, which is required vocabulary for this section 

of the road. The hardware store delivery truck comes 

by after a bit, and we ride in the back of the flat bed 

for the rest of the way. 

86 


We arrive and unload our purchases, giving the delivery guys a $9 tip. Unfortunately, the threaded ends of the galvanized 

pipes are not male-female as we had understood from the man at the hardware store, but male-male, thus requiring 

connectors. Fortunately, Los Naranjos has saved the straight connectors from the broken 2” galvanized pipe, 

and even has some elbow pieces that must be left over from the original construction. This allows us to begin work 

on the 2” pipe while we wait for Mike to drop off ½” connectors the next day. Some boys carried the 2” pipe down to 

the river. Amanda, Russ, Jon, and I help with construction that morning while Anna and Rita begin the health surveys. 

The first task we have at the river is to move the dead tree trunk off the bent pipe. It is impressive to watch how efficiently 

Alfonso uses his machete to cut down a small tree on which the trunk is propped, making a lever out of this 

smaller tree to move the large trunk. With this lever and maybe eight of us pushing, we are able to budge the trunk, 

but we don’t really get moving until Alfonso makes a second lever for us to pry with. We have to move the tree over 

a hole in the riverbed, and how to do this takes some time to figure out, but nobody rushes and we steadily make 

progress. The project generally progresses in this fashion. An obstacle is encountered and the Los Naranjos men take 

a few minutes discussing strategy. We make a few suggestions through Amanda, which they listen to politely, but only 

occasionally incorporate. This is Los Naranjos’s project after all, not ours, and they have more construction experience 

than we do, so we are content to let them take the lead, while we provide help with the labor. 

My afternoon is spent doing health surveys with Amanda. It takes about four hours to do five surveys, much of this 

time being spent walking from house to house, figuring out who might be home and hasn’t been surveyed yet. I don’t 

do a whole lot on the surveys, just say hello, take a few notes on people’s living conditions, and take their pictures at 

the end. Everyone is very upfront about answering personal questions about their families, incomes, diets, health, 

water usage, and priorities for their village. It is good Spanish practice to listen to the conversation and follow along 

with the Spanish script and English translation. 

Wednesday, 1/7/09 

This morning, we take the long path around to David’s 

spring to install the ½” galvanized steel piping. 

Although this way is longer than going up the river, 

the walking is easier and we’re carrying ten lengths 

of pipe, cement, and tools. The path is probably 

the preferred route to the springs during the rainy 

season when it becomes impossible to walk up the 

streambed. Alfonso breaks up the concrete around 

the 45-degree PVC elbow currently protruding from 

the spring box. There is some discussion over how 

to attach the galvanized pipe, it seems like the PVC- 

Galv. adapter is on a 90-degree elbow. Abel cuts the 

PVC pipe to remove the 45-degree elbow. Abel then 

lights a piece of cement bag on fire and holds it to the PVC, attempting to bend the pipe. I don’t think it works, so 

Nelson is sent to get another PVC 45-degree elbow. While we wait for this piece I go to get shorts and sandals so I could 

wade in the river and help out properly. I end up walking back down to the river at the same time as Nelson and we 

trade a few more English-Spanish words. “Elbow” (of both the pipe and arm varieties) in espanol is “codo”. Nelson 

puts the two elbows together and pretends to have a telephone. “Hello?” 


By the time we get back, the ½” pipes have been laid out down the river channel. These pipes came with green tape 

around the threads, which would have been handy to protect the threads on the 2” pipe. This tape is kind of a pain 

to peel off, but once that was off, the ½” pipes are much easier to connect than the 2” pipe. The only trick here is to 

make sure you don’t unscrew the upstream pipe from its connector as you attach a new downstream pipe. Fortunately 

we have two monkey wrenches, so the upstream pipe can be held in place while the next downstream pipe is 

attached. 

Once the pipe has been laid, we reinforce it with concrete and rocks. To make the concrete Don Goyo and one of the 

boys mix sand, concrete, and water in a method that I can most easily compare to a volcano of mashed potatoes and 

gravy. The sand and cement are mixed together on a flat spot of ground using a shovel and then piled into a little 

hill. A depression is made in the middle of this hill and then small buckets of water are poured into the middle. The 

mix is slowly made by pouring shovels-full of sand into the water until it is consistent. 

It is fun working alongside Alfonso and the kids. I like to think of myself about as helpful as 

an eight-year old, or due to my lack of language skills. I’m willing though, and I help fetch 

rocks, use my hands to scoop concrete, and place rocks around the pipe. As we start running 

low on concrete, we use larger rocks with just a little concrete between them, which I think 

looks better and is a more efficient use of materials. 

Professor Durant arrives in the late morning and looks over the progress we have made placing 

piping in the river. After lunch we inspect the filters. We notice that the cap is missing 

and the valve is closed on the discharge pipe from the filtered water tank. In order for the 

churro (spigot) for the clean water to be used, the cap has to be in place and the valve opened. This is confusing 

because in the surveys people say that they use the filtered water for drinking, but at that moment the clean churro 

could not be working. We notice that there is water coming out of the filtered tank overflow, located on the other 

side of the “Little Mermaid” tank. Later, we ask Ricardo what happened to the cap, and he goes and gets it, possibly 

from Abel’s house. Ricardo says they had just cleaned the tank before we had arrived and had forgotten to replace the 

cap. We decide that someone should observe water collection the next morning and figure out which chorro people 

are taking water from. 

For the rest of the afternoon, Rita and I do land surveying. We set up the transit in the corn grinding hut and let 

everyone have a look through the telescope. Professor Durant wants to test the accuracy of his GPS unit by comparing 

the elevation of the filtered water tank with the elevation at the far corner of the soccer field. His readings jump 

around by 5 – 10 meters, while the surveyed difference is 3.8 meters, so it is clear that the surveying equipment is 

much more accurate than GPS for determining elevation differences within a site. Rita and I survey from the top of 

the filtered water tank down to the RAM pump, getting a difference of 42.1 meters or 138 feet. We also do distance 

measurements using stadia, finding a distance of 277 meters. I spend a few minutes showing Ricardo what we are 

doing. Pictures and gestures go a long way when my Spanish is lacking, which is always. 

Thursday, 1/8/09 

I wake up at 5:30, hoping to see a sunrise and to observe which churro people are taking water from. The churro 

under the tree is unfiltered water from the “Little Mermaid” tank and the churro by the soccer goal is the water from 

the filters, which should work now that the cap has been replaced and the valve opened. 

88 


Between 6:00 and 6:15, about fifteen people arrive, either grinding corn using the gasoline-powered grinder in the 

hut or standing around the churro under the tree. Abel is squatting near the dirty churro while a dozen women stand 

around with their water jugs. It seems there is a problem getting the water this morning. At 6:30 I walk up to the 

filter and make sure that the valve is opened and then over to Abel to ask what the problem is. Abel is leaning over 

a concrete box that is locked with a padlock. Apparently there is a valve inside that the Water Board uses to regulate 

usage of the churro and Abel does not have the key. I do not know if this valve also controls the clean churro, but 

no one goes to the chorro by the goal, they just wait for Abel to open the valve. By 6:35 the key is brought and the 

women begin filling water jugs. Nine take water from the dirty churro, while three people take water from the clean 

churro. At 7:00 I go back to Alfonso’s house for breakfast. 

After breakfast Rita and I run a level loop from the intermediate tank to the springbox, from the intermediate tank to 

the RAM pump, and check the elevation difference between the RAM pump and the filter tank. The surveys go well. 

Rita and I notice ourselves getting better and better at finding the right spots to set up and do the surveys with as few 

stations as possible. We are no longer doing distance measurements with the transit, since our route surveying up 

the river is not the same as the 2” water service pipe, which travels over land. Relative elevations from an assumed 

datum are shown on the site plan. 

Before lunch Alfonso shows us his fruit trees. We sample his “sugar” oranges, which are sweet, despite the fact they 

are still green. He also has Valencia oranges and nectarines. Alfonso planted these trees when he came to Arada 

Vieja. Appropriate for Los Naranjos, but the community pre-dates his trees! 

After lunch, we convene a meeting with the Water Board (minus Abel) to discuss what else is needed in the short 

term as we wind down our involvement with the community. They request a ½” ball valve to replace the gate valve 

we bought to use on the pipe from David’s spring and tube clamps for an unknown use. They discuss constructing a 

pila below the RAM pump to use as a washing station rather than washing directly in the river, but we likely won’t be 

involved in that project. Don Goyo, Ricardo, and Alfonso thank us for coming to visit them and for our help. In one 

of the most memorable moments of the trip, they tell us that none of what they have built would be possible without 

the help of EWB and Mike and Suzy. They say they enjoy working with us, how they would not forget about us, and 

invite us back. We sincerely thank them for their hospitality and promise that our organization will return. 

After the meeting, I show Ricardo the map I have sketched of Arada Vieja and he helps label the houses, draw the fish 

ponds, and the 2” pipe from the spring box to the intermediate tank, which he indicates is 200 meters long. 

We have a little bit of time before Mike arrives to pick us up so Rita and I head down the springs to measure the 

elevation difference between the spring box and David’s spring. We get a little lost on the long path down there, but 

in the process stumble upon what may be the spring that the lady in Health Survey 3 referred to as the source of her 

water, since she could not afford the $2 a month for the filtered water. There are several house-sized boulders with 

a pool of water in the middle with a path leading up to them. We survey from David’s spring to the spring box, but 

unfortunately do not have time to complete the loop to check this measurement. Not good engineering practice, but 

since the rest of the loops checked out, we are reasonably confident in the elevation of David spring. 

A political rally is in full swing by the time we get back up to the field to wait for Mike. The FMLN are dressed all in 

red and are speaking over the microphone and blaring music. The civil war is never too far away from current events 


in El Salvador. Between 1980 and 1992, 75,000 people were killed in this nation of seven million people with an area 

about the size of Massachusetts. The political party currently in power is Arena, who are the same conservatives that 

FMLN (the rebel group) fought during the civil war. It seems likely that FMLN will gain power in the legislature in this 

month’s election, and possibly the presidency in March. According to CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/ 

americas/01/16/el.salvador.election/ this is an example of how a violent organization can evolve into a political one. 

There is doubt, however, as Mike attested to as well, over whether Arena will cooperate with a transfer of power 

should they lose the election. 

For the last hour we relax, playing soccer with the 

boys. Most of the village is there to send us off. 

We all pose for a picture with the Tufts banner, 

lots of hugs and handshakes. The Xterra is literally 

stuffed full as we lurch back to Mike’s house. 

Saturday, 1/10/09 

The water tests from Arada Vieja we completed 

last night gave us surprising, and somewhat troubling 

results. The filtered water taken from the 

clean churro appears to be dirtier than the unfiltered 

water taken from the dirty churro. Russ, Jon, 

and Amanda are making a trip to the hardware 

store to buy the valves and such that Arada Vieja asked for, and then are going to take more samples. 

In the afternoon, our team and Professor Durant go to Porvenir for a community meeting. Tomas’s wife has put out 

the word for us, and probably 15 people come to the meeting. Many work on Saturdays, but by having the meeting 

today we will be able to catch people at home tomorrow to do the health surveys. As folks arrive, Mike tells us about 

the community president, Francisco a.k.a. “the Pouter”. Apparently, a woman who was the former community president 

called Francisco out in public for not getting anything done and Francisco was so insulted that he has boycotted 

recent events. Mike thinks that he may choose to stay home pouting rather than attend our meeting today, but he 

does indeed arrive and does the majority of the talking among the Porvenir people. 

Francisco tells us that the people of Porvenir are dying. They need water and electricity. Mike says that in the past 

they bought solar-chargeable lights from a Canadian man, who has since vanished and the lights stopped working far 

before their supposed life span. The community has been there for 45 years and now has 30 houses, with about 100- 

120 people. (The number of homes in the village and the number of people was a confusing part of the conversation, 

so these numbers should not be considered absolutely accurate.) They estimate that each family uses 15 gallons of 

water per day, which is taken from Domingo’s well during the dry season. During the wet season, the primary method 

for rain collection is runoff from rooftops. Their top priority for a project is to build a water conveyance system to 

bring water to a more central location. They mention making high walls around Domingo’s pila to protect it from the 

high river flows, so they can use it during the wet season. They say that the water from the spring is clean and safe 

to drink. They agree to participate in health surveys the next day and Francisco offers to act as a guide, showing us 

where people live and making introductions to those who could not attend the meeting. 

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Sunday, 1/11/09 

This is our big day in Porvenir to do health surveys, land surveying, water quality testing, and flow rate estimation 

of Tomas’s spring. Mike drives us, our equipment, and plenty of water out there, and we get to work at about 9:30. 

Ana and Jon form one health surveying team with Francisco for a guide, while Amanda and Russ form the other, with 

Miguel Anthony as guide. Rita and I will have our hands full doing a land survey comparing the elevations of critical 

points of a potential water distribution system: the meeting tree, the high point on the road in front of Domingo’s 

house, Domingo’s well, the road in front of Tomas’s new house, and Tomas’s spring box. 

We set our first benchmark in the root of the meeting tree, a nail with a piece of orange ribbon. We run a set of traverses 

up to another benchmark in a tree in front of Domingo’s house. The neighborhood kids are curious what we 

are doing so I let them look through the transit, which makes them laugh. I try to explain that the transit is looking 

level and I’m writing down the numbers that I see on the rod that Rita is holding, but I’m not sure if they understand, 

or even care. Although very few of these kids go to school, they are able to read the numbers as I point to them. 

Something we noticed about Porvenir is a lack of working-age adults. It seems that there are lots of older people and 

kids, but not so many in between. Perhaps the explanation is that these people are all working during the day when 

we are there. 

Our third benchmark is a nail in a tree in front of Tomas’s new house and we run loops down to each water source. 

The most surprising result of our survey is that Domingo’s pila is 8.9 meters higher in elevation than the meeting tree. 

Possible designs we had discussed with Professor Durant had involved installing a RAM pump to move water up the 

slope from Domingo’s pila to the road, but in fact this may not be necessary. It may be possible to construct a simple 

pipeline that brings spring water from Domingo’s to the meeting tree by gravity alone. We rush to check our measurement 

from the high point back to the meeting tree, and are excited that our loop checks out. 

Design options to consider in Porvenir: 

• Drill a well. This is the “Cadillac option”, most expensive, perhaps $20,000, but should yield good water 

quality and year round flow. 

- How deep would we need to go? We were thinking that the water table would be very deep in the 

area of the tree, since the drop off from Louisa’s house to the river is so far…but given the finding 

about the height of the river at Domingo’s house, maybe this is not the case and a drilled well 

would be feasible near the meeting tree. 

- How to pay for? Professor Durant suggested contacting a Rotary club, such as the one from Keane. 

They have money and are focusing on water projects. 

• Replace Domingo’s pila with a spring box above the high water mark that will allow it to be used during 

the wet season. (I wonder what the disadvantages of using rainwater are…it would seem to be nice not to 

have to haul water, but people did suggest raising the walls of the pila during the community meeting.) How 

would a new spring box be connected? Should we assume that somewhere near the meeting tree would be 

the ideal place for distribution? 

- Connect new spring box directly to tree with gravity pipeline. 

• In theory is feasible, but we don’t know details about terrain along the riverbank. Pipeline could have dips 

and high points, but it can’t cross ground higher than the spring. 

- Use a RAM pump to bring water to high point in front of Domingo’s house. 


• More elaborate. Would require intermediate tank and RAM pump. Also, would require more water…RAM 

pump is about 15 percent efficient. 

•Use existing pila and convey water to meeting tree. 

- Cheapest option…would only work during dry season, but perhaps this would be a good first step. 

Might not work to do RAM pump, but maybe overland gravity pipeline would work 

•Other thoughts: 

- Where do we place a new spring box? How do we know where the groundwater flows are? Would 

anyone in Porvenir be able to do this? 

- When do we think about filtering? Should we first concentrate to conveying water? 

- Can our friends in Arada Vieja help with the Porvenir project? They know how to build and 

maintain a water system…perhaps we and, in the future, others could hire them to train others. 

92 


Tufts Energy Forum (TEF) 

The Tufts Energy Forum (TEF), formerly the Energy Security Initiative, has grown significantly in the past year, more 

than doubling its active membership, sending students to places like Denmark, South Africa, China and India and 

greatly increasing its activity on campus. After careful consideration, our members chose to change the organization’s 

name this year to the Tufts Energy Forum for its brevity and ability to reflect the breadth of the energy technologies 

and issues discussed as well as the diversity of academic endeavors. 

Discussion has been lively and informative, as the inclusive atmosphere fosters a love of both learning and laughter. 

In the fall, the group built group cohesion by organizing a retreat to the Loj in New Hampshire. In the second semester, 

new and old members alike spearheaded the initiative to put on a well-oiled, professional conference, reach 

out more to establish a formal relationship with the Tufts Engineering department, and began to realize some of the 

benefits of membership in the Collegiate Energy Association. Information sharing with the CEA is incredibly useful for 

the TEF leadership to better understand group capabilities and refine organizational structure. 

TEF organized a number of public events on and off campus campus this year: 

“The Future of Oil: Fossil Fuels in the 21st Century” 

Fletcher International Business Professor Bruce Everett spoke to 30 Tufts and Fletcher students on the prospects of 

fossil fuels in the 21st century. Professor Everett, a Fletcher graduate and Fulbright scholar, has worked in the energy 

industry for almost 30 years, 22 of which were spent at ExxonMobil. He began his presentation by clarifying the difference 

between resources and reserves, the former being the total amount of hydrocarbons in existence and the latter 

the hydrocarbons available for extraction with today’s technology and economics. He then argued that the world has 

unlimited fossil fuel resources when natural gas, heavy oil, coal, shale and methane hydrates are taken into account. 

The cheapest resources are the reserves found in the big five oil producing countries of the Middle East, but, as technology 

improves, economically viable resources will become more evenly dispersed across the globe. 

Given the current inadequacy of alternative fuel technologies, he contended that constraining fossil fuel use in the US 

would only limit economic growth, restrict mobility and eventually enable China to gain global primacy. He warned 

that government intervention in oil pricing is ultimately detrimental as innovation only occurs when consumers feel 

price signals. He also warned that it is far too soon to pick winners – the game changing technology will likely come 

out of left field. 

He closed his frank discussion with advice for students looking to enter the energy industry after graduation: while 

oil and natural gas are mature industries, the electric power industry is about to undergo significant reorganization 

and growth. Despite the technological challenges that must be overcome, he predicts that “the transformations in 

[our] lifetime will be radical.” 

“Who Killed the Electric Car” 

TEF sponsored a screening and discussion for group members and guests of the critically acclaimed 2006 documentary, 

“Who Killed the Electric Car,” directed by Chris Paine. This film explores the mysterious disappearance of General 

Motors’ initially successful electric car program, and the evaporation of government incentives for clean, alternative 

transportation in the state of California. 


Following the movie, members hosted a brief discussion on the premises and conclusions of the movie’s arguments, 

which indicted consumers, oil companies, car companies, federal and local government entities, and hydrogen-fuelcell 

programs as creating a ‘perfect storm’ that stopped the spread of practical clean vehicles. This screening served as 

the concluding event for TEF’s unit exploring the structure of the existing fossil-fuels industry, and corresponds with 

in-progress TEF-sponsored research into contemporary electric car programs. 

“Presidential Campaigns Debate Energy Policy” 

TEF cosponsored and debate at MIT organized by the student-run MIT Energy Club and the MIT Energy Initiative. 

The debaters were James Woolsey, former CIA director and advisor on energy to Republican Presidential candidate 

John McCain, and Jason Grumet, head of the National Commission on Energy Policy and current advisor on energy to 

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama. The 90-minute debate was moderated by Tom Ashbrook, host of 

the NPR program “On Point”. 

Tufts Energy Conference 2009 

“Where we get our power from and how 

we use it is one of the most important 

societal issues of the 21st century.” This 

year, Tufts Energy Forum (TEF) hosted its 

fourth annual energy conference: “Global 

Green Infrastructure: Powering the 21st 

Century”. The Conference featured three 

panel discussions with experts from fields 

of academia, research, business and policy 

and explored the areas of: new infrastructure 

technologies, revitalizing the US 

national infrastructure and powering the 

developing world. 

This year’s conference featured three keynote addresses, delivered Gregg Dixon, president of EnerNOC; Peter Droege, 

former IGL INSPIRE Fellow and chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy’s Asia region; and Mindy Lubber, 

President of CERES. 

The panel discussions were: 

Innovation and Diffusion of New Infrastructure Technologies 

Examining the efforts to both finance and develop technologies 

that allow us to use power more efficiently and sustainably. 

This panel brought together the science and technology 

of infrastructure development and explored the future of 

new technological innovation and diffusion. Panelists were 

James Bickford, Draper Labs; Philip Guidice, Commissioner 

of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources; Jon 

Karlen, Flybridge Capital; Richard Larson, MIT; and Rob Pratt, Energy Climate Solutions. 

94 


Revitalizing National Infrastructure 

This panel explored the future of U.S. Infrastructure policy. 

What roles will the U.S. Federal government, state governments, 

utilities, and other actors play in the future of U.S. 

Infrastructure policy? How can we alter our grid to encourage 

more sustainable power use? Is distributed generation 

a better means to greener power supply and usage than 

grid-based infrastructure? The panelists were Evan Sanders, 

A123 Systems; Watson Collins, NE Utilities; Penny Conner, 

NSTAR; Alan Nogee, Union of Concerned 

Scientists; and Suzanne Watson, American 

Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. 

The panel was moderated by Professor 

Kent Portney, Tufts Department of Political 

Science. 

Powering the Developing World 

This panel examined developing world 

energy infrastructure. It sought to understand 

how growing nations will get their 

power in the future, especially as many 

countries see rapid population growth 

and subsequent energy demand growth. 

What are the best routes for meeting this need in a sustainable manner? Can distributed generation technologies 

carry the load? What other technologies and policies are needed? To what extent will developed nations contribute to 

the process? The panelists were Michael Caramanis, Boston University; Richard Hansen, Soluz Inc.; and Sam White, 

Promethean Power. It was moderated by Professor David Dapice, Tufts University. 

As leaders of a student energy group, four TEF members (Renee Birenbaum, Elyse Tyson, David Suzenksi and Daniel 

Enking) were invited to the Annual Meeting of the Collegiate Energy Association, the umbrella group for all graduate 

and undergraduate energy clubs worldwide. The purpose of the meeting at MIT was to build connections among the 

student leaders with a view to creating future opportunities for collaboration. Much of the meeting was spent networking, 

as well as comparing notes on organizational strategies and coming to the understanding that each club has 

much to offer the others in terms of advice, experience and resources. 


ALLIES 

ALLIES had a strong fourth year of building a broader base of student interest at Tufts, strengthening ties with its partners 

at the Service Academies, and expanding joint training opportunities for dedicated members. Since its founding 

in the Spring of 2006, ALLIES has continued to look for new and innovative ways to cultivate the civil-military relationship 

on an undergraduate level. In its fourth year, ALLIES members and the Tufts community have had multiple opportunities 

to engage in civil-military relationship building through lectures and conferences at Tufts and the Service 

Academies, the annual Joint Research Project, research grants and internship opportunities, and weekly discussions 

on relevant topics. 

The year began with the students finishing their recommendation 

from the June 2008 Joint Research Project to Jordan. 

In June 2008, eleven Tufts students, two Naval Academy 

midshipmen, and two West Point cadets traveled to Jordan 

to participate in the second annual Joint Research Project 

(JRP). The JRP is one of two capstone ALLIES events. Participants 

lived together in Jordan for one month, researching 

the impact of the Iraq War for Jordan. Students conducted 

research on Iraqi refugees and “guests,” in Amman, the impact 

of the war on US democracy promotion, and US-Jordanian 

security cooperation. Individuals interviewed include: 

• Dr. Abdul Latif Arabiyat, Former Secretary General, Islamic Action Front (IAF) 

• Ziad Ayad, Associate Research Officer in the Public Information Unit, UNHCR 

•Dr. Hassan Barari , Researcher, Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan 

• Harriet Dodd, Director, CARE International Jordan 

• Dr. Hashim Elzein Elmousaad, Head of Mission, WHO Jordan 

• Kim Gordon-Bates, Deputy Head of Delegation, ICRC Jordan 

• David Hale, US Ambassador to Jordan 

• Bill Flink, former Director, Jordan International Police Training Center 

• H.E. Mr. Nasser Judeh, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communication, Prime Ministry, 

Government of Jordan 

• Mouin Rabbani, Senior Analyst, Middle East Program, International Crisis Group 

• H.E. Mr. Nasser Shraideh, Secretary General, Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, 

Government of Jordan 

• Dennis Walto, Country Director for Jordan and Lebanon, Save the Children 

Participants also had to opportunity to participate in cultural trips to Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, Hussein Bin 

Talal University, Jerash, Madaba, Mount Nebo, and Zarqa. 

After a semester of joint preparation and a month of on-the-ground research, students produced a set of three memos 

outlining recommendations for US policy towards Jordan on the three subtopics. The JRP received a grant from 

the Compton Foundation to distribute the results of their research and conduct a cultural exchange with students 

from Jordan. Thus, the JRP participants were able to bring two students from the University of Jordan to the US. The 

96 


Jordanian students visited Washington DC and the Naval Academy, 

and came to Tufts to participate in the 2008 ALLIES Intellectual 

Roundtable (right). 

The trip greatly impacted the students’ understanding of Jordan, 

the Iraq War, and civil-military relations in general. 

One West Point participant commented: 

By the end of the project, with the group working well together, it 

occurred to me that civil-military cooperation is not only useful, but 

it is necessary and it would enhance the outcome of this and future 

projects. First and foremost, we all learned to work together towards 

a common goal with peers who do not share the same experiences as 

ourselves. This understanding of how to work together despite differences 

of opinions is directly applicable to what I will be doing in 

the future… Learning to not only understand, but also respect, the 

viewpoints and opinions of civilians will be extremely important in 

my future, and it may even be the difference between success and 

failure in U.S. endeavors around the world. Furthermore, having 

different viewpoints from different backgrounds enhanced the quality of the work that the team completed. The quality 

was enhanced because more viewpoints led to more solutions. With more solutions, we could combine the best aspects 

of various proposals and produce a better product…Needless to say, my opinions about my civilian peers changed 

drastically by the end of the trip…After participating in the JRP, I have a much better appreciation for the necessity of 

civil-military relations and I am better prepared to quickly solve civil-military issues that I will undoubtedly deal with 

in the future. I also have a much better appreciation of my civilian counterparts at the undergraduate level, and am 

encouraged by the fact that these will be people who play important roles in various organizations that aim to solve different 

problems in the world. I feel privileged to have participated on this trip, and know that I have taken invaluable 

experience away from the Joint Research Project. 

A participant from the Naval Academy noted: 

The research that occurred would not have been possible without 

the joint make up of the trip. The amount of resources 

available to the students was far greater than what any single 

University or Academy working unilaterally would have been 

able to attain. The diverse and collaborative nature of the trip 

was universally beneficial as each participating body brought 

specific proficiencies and resources that were unavailable to 

the other institutions. Though the interviews and meetings of 

the JRP were the intended forum for academic exchange, a 

large amount of the intellectual discourse occurred in less formal 

settings. Due to the diverse nature and backgrounds of the group, the potential for the dispersion of knowledge and 


ideas was immense. The participants took full advantage of this unique situation whenever possible. A significant portion 

of the group’s final conclusions on civil military relations was a direct result of the intensive and substantial discussions 

that occurred after the working hours. The participants were genuinely impressed with the passion and professionalism 

exhibited by the other members in their areas of specialization. Throughout the JRP, each of the participants gained an 

increased understanding of cross-cultural communication and the importance of interoperability. These lessons were 

learned as much from the successful approaches taken to communication as the unsuccessful ones. Several operational 

differences between the civilian and military participants posed the potential to be severely detrimental to research 

progress, but were instead overcome and utilized as case studies in civil military relations…Ultimately, the most important 

product that came out of the JRP was the long term connections between the participating members. These have 

culminated not only in lasting friendships, but also in increased confidence and trust between civilians and the military. 

From October 29-30, 2008, ALLIES hosted 

the second annual Intellectual Roundtable, 

“Civilians and Soldiers: Increasing 

National Participation in Security and 

Defense.” The roundtable explored the increasing 

need to combine intellectual and 

technical competencies that have, until 

now, largely been relegated into separate 

civilian or military spheres. The dilemmas 

of the 21st century— resource scarcity, 

climate change, terrorism, religious fanaticism—require 

both civilians and soldiers 

to work together to create a national 

security apparatus capable of combining 

both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ tools of power. Only through a more expansive policy approach that draws on a wide variety of 

disciplines and knowledge, will the US create coherent solutions to complex global problems. The 2008 Intellectual 

Roundtable addressed how to involve a more diverse set of actors in national security by engaging with future leaders 

in the formative stages of their education, giving them a head start and an adequate base of knowledge for addressing 

the foremost issues of this century. 

The ALLIES Roundtable brought together 

practitioners from the military, civilian 

government, civil society, and private 

sector with the academic community— 

from professors to civilian and military 

students. Together, through the use of 

guided, small-group discussions (right) 

in conjunction with panel presentations, 

these disparate groups came together to 

discuss issues such as “Increasing Participation 

in National Security”, “Obstacles to 

Civil Military Cooperation”, “The Meaning 

98 


of Citizenship”, and “ALLIES, The Way Forward”. The public events featured keynote addresses by Professor Antonia 

Chayes of Tuft’s Fletcher School and Professor Andrew Bacevich of Boston University, as well as panel discussions on 

“Strange Bedfellows? The Department of Defense and the Social Sciences” and “The Imminent Challenge: Transitioning 

Security in Fragile States” and the screening of the award-winning documentary “Hidden Wounds”. 

Antonia Chayes is Visiting Professor of International Politics and Law at The Fletcher School. She chairs the Project on 

International Institutions and Conflict Management at the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School. During 

the Carter Administration she was Assistant and later, Under Secretary of the US Air Force, where she was awarded 

the Distinguished Service Medal. She has served on several Federal Commissions, including the Vice President’s White 

House Aviation Safety and Security Commission, and the Commission on Roles and Missions of the United States 

Armed Forces. In 2004, she received the IGL’s Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award. 

Andrew J. Bacevich (right) is Professor of International Relations 

and History at Boston University. A graduate of the US 

Military Academy, he is the author of The Limits of Power: 

American Exceptionalism, American Empire: The Realities and 

Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy, and The New American Militarism: 

How Americans Are Seduced by War. 

The panel discussion on the Department of Defense and the 

Social Sciences examined the growing emphasis within the 

DOD on drawing from the social sciences to bolster US security 

aims. In recent years, the Department of Defense has 

begun to reach out to the social sciences, requesting various disciplines’ participation in national security, from seeking 

social science research through Project Minerva, to utilizing academics in the writing of the new counterinsurgency 

manual, to the use of anthropologists and other social scientists in the field on Human Terrain Teams. It explored 

the potential ethical dilemmas of such a relationship, as 

well as current barriers to cooperation and ways to overcome 

some of those barriers. Panelists included Dr. Donald 

Abenheim, Academic Associate for Strategic Studies and an 

Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval 

Postgraduate School; Major Tania Chacho, United States 

Military Academy; Dr. Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology 

and Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Department 

at Tufts University; and Major John Powell Williams (Ret.), 

Lecturer in the Leadership, Ethics and Law Department at 

the U.S. Naval Academy 

The panel discussion on security sector reform examined obstacles to cooperation, current efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

and possible solutions to the problem of achieving the whole-of-government approach necessary for 

reform. A necessary precondition for state-building is basic security. In failed or failing states, that security can often 

only be achieved be comprehensive security reform at all levels, including the armed forces, the police forces 

and the judicial system, the entities that oversee these organizations, and the legislative and executive institutions 


that sit at the top of government. Effective security sector 

reform requires a coherent whole-of-government approach 

that involves multiple US agencies, civilian and military. It 

is arguable whether there are structures in place to allow 

for adequate communication and coordination among the 

various agency actors. Panelists included Mr. Dave Davis, a 

retired member of the Army Corps of Engineers from the 

Center for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence 

at George Mason University’s School of Information 

and Technology Engineering; Dr. Karen Guttieri, a stability 

operations and civil affairs specialist at the Cebrowski Institute 

for Innovation at the Naval Postgraduate School; Dr. Richard Hoffman, Director of the Center for Civil-Military 

Relations (CCMR) at the US Naval Post Graduate School; and Mr. Jake Sherman (EPIIC’96, A’96), Project Coordinator 

for the Building International Capacity for Security Sector Reform project at New York University’s Center for International 

Cooperation. 

“Hidden Wounds” explores the painful reality of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 

(PTSD), through the stories of three veterans and their struggles to overcome 

the trauma of their experiences. The Documentary received the National Edward 

R. Murrow Award and the New England Emmy. Directed by Iris Adler 

(left), Executive Editor for New England Cable News, the documentary has won 

the Cine Golden Eagle Award and the Silver Remi Award and it has been shown 

at the 2007 United Nations Association Film Festival, among many others. 

ALLIES also sent delegates to various conferences held at the Service Academies. 

Two ALLIES delegates attended the National Conference on Ethics in 

America at West Point in October 2008. Two ALLIES delegates attended West 

Point’s Student Conference on US Affairs in November 2008. In January 2009, 

two delegates attended the Naval Academy leadership conference on “Generational 

Leadership.” Finally, two students represented ALLIES at the Naval 

Academy Foreign Affairs Conference, “Combating Global Poverty.” 

During the EPIIC symposium, ALLIES hosted cadets and midshipmen 

from all three Service Academies and sponsored a break-out session 

on urban warfare, led by the ALLIES sponsors at the Service Academy 

chapters: Lt Col Benjamin Paganelli, Major (ret) John Williams, and 

Major Erik Bjorklund. The event attracted roughly 25 students. During 

the EPIIC symposium, representatives from each of the ALLIES 

chapters participated in constructive meetings discussing the future 

of ALLIES, the structure of relations between the four chapters, and 

the way forward for ALLIES programming. Also at that meeting, the 

Air Force Academy presented (right) an opportunity for ALLIES students 

to do research through the Eisenhower Center, an exciting development in joint training and educational opportunities 

for ALLIES members. 

100 


On March 27, ALLIES sponsored the second 

annual David Rawson Memorial Lecture 

(David Rawson was a student in EPIIC 

who was planning to pursue a career 

in naval intelligence after graduation). 

Rear Admiral (ret) Eric A. McVadon (right, 

fourth from left) discussed a forward view 

on US-China relations, with an emphasis 

on China’s military power. Also in March 

2009, ALLIES co-sponsored a conference at 

the Harvard Divinity School, “Ivies and the 

Military.” Future ALLIES co-chair Margaret 

O’Connor participated on a panel at the 

conference, introducing participants to 

the ALLIES model. Additionally, ALLIES was a co-sponsor of a campus symposium on US-Russia relations. 

The Tufts ALLIES chapter met weekly to cover important business and discuss topics related to civil-military relations, 

citizenship, and national service. Students read a weekly article ahead of time, and came together for engaged and 

educated discussion. Examples of discussion topics include the DOD’s proposed budget for 2010, the establishment of 

a National Academy for Public Service, Russia’s military build-up, and women in combat. 

This summer, representatives from Tufts, the US Air Force Academy, the US Naval Academy, and the US Military Academy 

will travel to Chile for the third annual Joint Research Project. Additionally, three ALLIES students will participate 

in a research and internship opportunity designed specifically for ALLIES at the Peacekeeping Stability Operations Institute. 

Tufts ALLIES members will participate in individual internships at such organizations as the State Department, 

the National Defense University, the Atlantic Monthly, and the National Interest. One Tufts ALLIES member will head 

to the US Marine Corps’ Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA. Two members will commission as 2nd Lts in the US 

Marine Corps and US Air Force. Other members will take Arabic immersion courses in Lebanon. 


Synaptic Scholars 

This year was one of expansion and change for Synaptics. The group gained a new class, bringing the program to full 

capacity for the first time. The scholars met as individual classes throughout the year, planned several group events, 

conducted a series of skill-building workshops, and held a fireside chat. 

The fall semester was one of change and adjustment. Instead 

of meeting weekly as a program, the students divided 

themselves by class. Smaller group meetings meant more intimate 

discussions. To help foster inter-class relations, they 

also held “feedback meetings” and had group events. Feedback 

meetings consist of one to two members from each 

class being paired by interest. It’s an opportunity to be constructively 

critical and supportive of each other’s projects 

as well as an opportunity to get to know members of other 

classes. Key also to the creating the larger group dynamic 

was the annual retreat to Moosilauke, NH (right). The sophomore class also sponsored a group outing to the Institute 

for Contemporary Art. 

To welcome the full cohort in the spring, 

the students organized the first annual 

sunrise breakfast (right). Those who 

wanted to run to the Mystic Lake together 

did so, and the rest followed in cars. The 

sunrise breakfast (not really at sunrise) 

offered an ideal opportunity to meet the 

new members and officially welcome 

them into the program. (More than 50 

students applied for the eight open slots.) 

In the fall, Synaptics held a fireside chat 

on “Music Cognition: How do we understand 

music” that featured Provost Jamshed 

Bharucha, Professor Ray Jackendoff, and Professor David Locke. The event was well attended with nearly all 

the present Synaptics attending as well as a large crowd of non-members. The event focused on discussion and was 

extremely successful in promoting audience participation with panelists. 

The senior class began a set of skill-building workshops intended to address feedback received from last year’s program 

evaluations that Synaptics should promote good research skills. They were therefore designed to offer a “howto” 

guide on doing individual research, conducting interviews, and securing institutional support. 

To culminate both the fall and spring semesters, each member presented his/her individual project to the entire 

group. These daylong events allowed us the rare opportunity to learn about everyone’s work, to celebrate together 

and to offer criticism and support. 

102 


The year ended with the end-of-year presentations. Here, the senior 

class was able to present their work from three years in the 

program, as well as to offer some of their own reflections and advice 

for coming years. Faculty and senior administrators were invited 

to event, with Tufts President Lawrence Bacow (right) giving 

introductory remarks. 

The Original “Syns” 

EYAL AMIT 

Eyal was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and spent the first six years of his life in the 

United States before his family settled in Haifa, Israel. He received his full education 

at “Hareali” private school, where he engaged in various activities: competitive sports, 

music, arts, boy scouts, and much community and volunteering work. He also served 

as a “Young Ambassador” for Israel’s Ministry of Education, representing Israeli youth 

across the US at the beginning of 1998. 

After graduation, he served in a special operations unit of the Israeli Paratroops as a combat soldier, and later as a 

commander. Following his discharge, at the age of 21, he enrolled in an acting school for one year and worked as a 

bartender in Tel Aviv, before enrolling in Tufts. He is double majoring in Economics and Psychology and has a deep 

interest in Behavioral Economics as well. Eyal participated in the Summer Scholars program as part of his endeavor to 

write a memoir in which he recounts his experiences in the military and from his participation in the second Lebanon 

war in 2006. He is graduating with cum laude honors. 

In his spare time, Eyal enjoys playing (guitar and piano) and listening to music, yoga, and hiking. Eyal has served as 

captain of Tufts’ JV soccer program for two years and has recently run the Boston marathon. 

Rethinking the Interpretation of the Dictator’s Game: The Effect of Context and Range Restriction 

As a senior double majoring in psychology and economics, Eyal has taken an interest in the up and coming field of 

behavioral economics, a domain that seeks to integrate the two disciplines. He has run two independent studies 

this year that relate to popular experimental paradigms often used by researchers: the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the 

Dictator’s game. Eyal will present his results pertaining to the interpretation of the latter game and will discuss its 

implications. 

“Synaptic Scholars has provided me with a wealth of opportunities to pursue those topics of inquiry which interest me so 

greatly. The program has helped me realize my potential as a researcher and has provided me with endless support and 


enthusiasm. I am grateful to both Sherman and Heather, as well as to my peers, all of who have made my time here a 

truly remarkable and unforgettable experience.” 

RACHEL BERGENFIELD 

Rachel’s focus is on conflict, communities, and international non-governmental organizations. She is particularly 

interested in Sub-Saharan Africa, applied participatory field research, and monitoring and evaluation within the conflict 

transformation and humanitarian spheres. 

Her current project focuses on transition and social repair in 

war-affected northern Uganda. It integrates research, community-based 

service, advocacy and teaching. As the recipient 

of the International Relations Research Scholar Award, 

she spent the winter break of 2008 and the summer of 

2009 in northern Uganda, conducting field research for her 

Senior Honors Thesis and assisting with a Fletcher School 

research project. After winning the 100 Projects for Peace 

Award in 2008, she and two young Tufts alumni founded a 

nonprofit organization called Collaborative Transitions Africa 

(CTA), which currently implements two projects in northern Uganda that support survivor-originated, communal 

peace initiatives. 

In the Fall of 2008, she co-taught a freshman Explorations seminar on “Post-Conflict Justice and Repair” with fellow 

Synaptic Scholar Maya Karwande. Rachel is also involved with various advocacy and other educational activities 

around the conflict in northern Uganda and has made several guest lectures and presentations. She is also the Chair 

of Tufts Collaborative on Africa and studied abroad in Cameroon. She is the recipient of the Marshall Hochhauser 

Prize for the Enrichment of Intellectual Life. She received highest honors for her thesis entitled “‘Frictions’ and Forgiveness: 

NGOs and Community Transitional Justice in War-Affected Northern Uganda.” 

NGOs and Communal Social Recovery in War-Affected Northern Uganda 

Rachel’s work in the Synaptic Scholar program is based on participatory field research in conflict-affected communities, 

particularly in northern Uganda. She has integrated her research with advocacy, teaching, and direct service via 

a nonprofit organization she co-founded with two Tufts alumni. 

“The Synaptic Scholars Program is my home at Tufts. I have met many of my closest friends through the program. We 

have tried to create a community that is intellectual and rigorous, yet also nurturing and intimate. At a university, where 

the gap between intellectual and social life for undergraduates can be quite large, the Synaptic Scholars Program is a 

bridge. I look forward to remaining involved in this community as an alum.” 

GEORGE DENFIELD 

George was born in Durham, North Carolina, but shortly thereafter moved to Houston, Texas where he has lived since. 

He attended St. John’s High School, during which time he cultivated his love for science, politics and philosophy. He 

is additionally very passionate about music. He has played classical piano since sixth grade, has taken both blues and 

jazz guitar lessons since ninth grade, and is classically trained in voice, recording two CDs with his high school band. 

104 


The second and third summers of his high school experience were occupied working in a lab at Hermann Hospital in 

the Houston Medical Center on renal fibrosis. This research became his project for the Siemens Westinghouse Competition. 

During the second semester of his freshman year at Tufts, George volunteered at a clinic 

in Jamaica Plain run by the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program. Following his 

freshman year, he volunteered with a research team at the University of Texas School 

of Public Health, working to increase awareness of colorectal cancer prevention within 

the Hispanic population in the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas. 

Most recently, George became fascinated by the topic of consciousness, both from a 

philosophical and scientific perspective. This interest pushed George to major in biopsychology 

and minor in Cognitive Science. Pursuing this interest, he has since worked at the Human Neuroimaging 

Lab at Baylor College of Medicine for the past two summers. He has just completed a thesis examining theories of the 

organization of the brain from the perspectives of cognitive science and neuroscience, partially advised by Professor 

Daniel Dennett. Ultimately, George is interested in the development of a more systematic approach to uniting cognitive 

science and psychology with neuroscience and will be attending the Medical Scientist Training Program at Baylor 

College of Medicine in Houston next year for his MD/PhD, with the goal of obtaining a PhD in neuroscience. 

Beyond Cognitive Modularity 

In this work, George examined various theories of the organization of the brain, from the perspectives of cognitive 

science and neuroscience. He argued for an increased research focus on the cortical column as a means of creating 

a more systematic approach to unifying our cognitive-scientific and neuroscientific approaches to understanding the 

brain. 

“The Synaptic Scholars program has been an important and wonderful part of my time at Tufts. The most rewarding 

aspect of the program has been getting to know and appreciate everyone involved. It’s been an honor to become friends 

with such impressive individuals. This Synaptics community has been highly motivating for me as well as intellectually 

stimulating; some of the most interesting and relevant conversations I’ve had at Tufts have taken place within this community. 

It has been a great experience to become connected with such concerned, motivated citizens.” 

HANNAH FLAMM 

Hannah graduated Magna Cum Laude from Tufts in February 2009 with a degree in Political Science. She is the recipient 

of the Prize Scholarship of the Class of 1882 and the Anne E. Borghesani Memorial Prize and is a member of the 

Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society. 

She began traveling to El Salvador in 2004, participating in and then leading community development service trips 

through International Partners. At Tufts, she researched youth civic participation and gang violence in El Salvador for 

the Project on Justice in Times of Transition’s Central America Youth Project and worked as a translator at the Youth 

Summit Meeting in Guatemala. 

Her investigation of the debate over gold mining evolved into a proposed joint fact-finding initiative and stakeholder 

assessment, with the support of the Institute for Global Leadership; the Tufts Water: Systems, Science and Society 


graduate program; the MIT-US Geological Survey Science 

Impact Collaborative; and the Consensus Building Institute. 

In 2009, she was in El Salvador for the presidential elections 

and helped create a village sewing cooperative through the 

Institute’s EMPOWER program. 

She is a co-founder of the Poverty and Power Research Initiative, 

an Institute program mentored by IGL INSPIRE Fellow 

Ambassador Jose Maria Argueta. Through this initiative, she 

co-led a trip to Guatemala in 2008 and oversaw the group’s 

Guatemala policy brief, which was cited in a publication of the US Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation. 

Gold Mining in El Salvador 

Hannah researched the social and political debate around opening gold mines in northern El Salvador with the goal 

of determining ways to mitigate potential harm and to increase and distribute equitably potential benefits. The 

project evolved into a proposed stakeholder assessment and joint fact-finding initiative to increase transparency, 

communication, and accountability at the local level. 

“Synaptic Scholars has been most valuable to me as a vehicle to make deep and lasting friendships. My college experience 

would have been less meaningful without the space for this human and intellectual exchange.” 

MIE INOUYE 

Mie has double-majored in International Letters and Visual Studies (ILVS) and Political Science at Tufts. Her focus 

within ILVS has been on Latin American and European literature. Within Political Science, she has focused on political 

philosophy. She is interested in the relationship between political regimes and artistic 

production, which she has explored through her senior thesis, “El Colectivo de Escritores 

Jovenes: Cultural Resistance to the Chilean Dictatorship.” Mie received high honors on her 

thesis, and she is the recipient of the Ivan Galantic Prize for Distinction in the Humanities, 

the James Vance Elliot Political Science Prize, and the International Letters and Visual Studies 

Prize. She is also Phi Beta Kappa. Mie plans to spend the next year working as a TA at 

Tufts and exploring graduate school options. 

El Colectivo de Escritores Jovenes: Cultural Resistance to the Chilean Dictatorship 

Mie’s project is a Senior Honors thesis that reconstructs the experience of a collective of 

young writers that existed in Chile during the military dictatorship. Combining historical 

and literary analysis and drawing from a series of personal interviews with authors who participated in the collective, 

she analyzes the group as part of a wider countercultural movement. 

“Synaptic Scholars has given me a way to forge meaningful relationships with like-minded students, learn how to conduct 

independent research abroad, and contribute to the intellectual community at Tufts. I think that the program can continue 

to serve these roles for many other Tufts students. In the future, the program ought to emphasize the community 

aspects more strongly and consider alternative methods of recruiting and including new students.” 

106 


SAMUEL JAMES 

Samuel James is from Cincinnati, Ohio. He studies political science at Tufts and photography 

at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Samuel has been involved with the 

Institute for Global Leadership’s Exposure and EPIIC programs and the Tufts men’s varsity 

soccer team. A significant portion of his education has centered on learning about 

Nigeria. Samuel first traveled to Lagos as a sophomore with three other Synaptic Scholars. 

His junior year, he took a leave from Tufts and returned to Lagos for six months, 

where he worked with the Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC). Through 

Exposure, he has also collaborated with the VII Photo Agency and the Aftermath Project on stories in Kashmir and 

Northern Uganda. He is currently working on a long term documentary project about his hometown, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Samuel is interested in telling stories with photographs and words. His other interest is soccer. 

Lagos Area Boys 

In Lagos, Nigeria, Africa’s largest and fastest growing megacity, several hundred thousand unemployed youth, known 

in local parlance as “area boys,” dictate the rhythm of the city through various means of violence and extortion. In 

Lagos, Samuel lived among various area boy factions, learning about and documenting their lives. 

“The Synaptic Scholars program enabled me to pursue an independent and self-initiated trip to Nigeria early in my college 

education. I owe many things to this experience. One, it gave me courage and confidence to pursue my interests. Two, 

it was extremely significant in solidifying my passion for socially concerned documentary photography. Three, because it 

occurred when I was a sophomore, I was left with a significant amount of time as an undergraduate to grapple with and 

cultivate this passion. From this early Synaptic platform, I’ve since embarked on an exciting and unexpected journey that 

led from paramilitary base camps in Kashmir to burial ceremonies in Northern Uganda to gang junctions in Lagos and all 

the way back to the forlorn streets of my hometown in Ohio. Along the way I have connected with people across the world 

that I am privileged to call friends and mentors. And through thick and thin, Heather and Sherman have been rock solid 

with unwavering support, guidance and friendship. Overall, my involvement with the Synaptic Scholars program and the 

IGL community at large has successfully helped me realize a passion that I would like to pursue in life, and equipped me 

with a variety of skills to do so with integrity, rigor, and heart.” 

MAYA KARWANDE 

Maya Karwande is a political science and peace and justice studies major from 

Salt Lake City, Utah. During her time at Tufts, Maya has focused on war crimes 

prosecutions and post-conflict reconstruction. 

As a sophomore Maya conducted an independent research project in Bosnia-Herzegovina 

through her participation in EPIIC. In the summer of 2007, she was able 

to return to Bosnia as an Anne E. Borghesani Memorial prize winner and studied 

the relationship between prosecutions and rule of law culture. The next summer 

Maya interned at the International Center for Transitional Justice, where she assisted 

in research for an upcoming project on “outreach” for transitional justice. 

As a senior, Maya combined her interests and experience into a Senior Honors Thesis, “Failure to Engage: Outreach at 

the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber,” for which she received highest honors. In addition to her independent research 


Maya has enjoyed co-teaching an Explorations class, Post-Conflict Justice and Repair, with Synaptic Scholar Rachel 

Bergenfield. Maya won the National Peace and Justice Studies Association Undergraduate Student Research Award 

for her thesis. Her selectors wrote: “The capstone papers submitted were very thorough and well-written; however, 

your work stood out for its strong analytical components, going beyond the descriptive to discuss applications for the 

future. You should be proud of what you have accomplished.” 

Failure to Engage: Outreach at the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber 

In 2005 the domestic prosecution of war crimes began at the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo. Despite a recognized 

need to explain its work to the public, the War Crimes Chamber has failed to inform and engage the Bosnian 

community. My thesis identifies the issues inhibiting effective communication and suggests improvements. 

“Synaptic Scholars is an incredible community of motivated, intelligent and supportive peers. Ranging from neuroscience 

to community health centers, I am constantly amazed by the interests and work of fellow scholars. It has been amazing 

to see the progress we have made as a group, as some ideas become full-fledged projects. While the work of each Synaptic 

is inspiring, it is really the friendship and support that makes this community unique. It is the relationships and the 

friends I have made through Synaptics that I value most and I look forward to keeping in contact with the class of 2009 

and the younger classes.” 

ALIZA LAILARI 

Aliza Lailari is a senior at Tufts whose interests include international development, South Asian Studies, photography, 

and international service. Although she currently lives in northern Virginia with her family, she previously lived in 

Israel, Greece, England, Omaha, as well various other locations in the US. While growing up, she developed a passion 

for traveling and enjoys learning about and immersing herself in new cultures as well as trying new foods. 

Aliza attended high school at the American International School in Israel. She was captain 

of her school’s soccer team and competed in tournaments throughout Europe. 

She also helped organize her school’s annual “Hockey Marathon,” a tradition of an 

overnight all-high school floor hockey tournament, and had leadership roles in student 

government and Model United Nations. 

At Tufts, Aliza has been active in student government, student research projects, and 

teaching. She became involved with the Tufts Senate when she arrived at Tufts and participated 

in EPIIC her sophomore year, with the theme “Global Crises: Governance and 

Intervention”. She has traveled with fellow Synaptic Scholars to Lagos, Nigeria to pursue 

research on construction of identity in the megacity and participated in a service trip with Tufts Leonard Carmichael 

Society to New Orleans. Aliza was selected to participate in the Summer Scholars program to pursue a research project 

on women call center workers in Bangalore, India with Professor Jayanthi Mistry of Child Development. She has 

focused most of her energy working on this project and completed a directed research project based on her work in 

India. In her junior year, she took a semester off to pursue an internship at Brookings Institution with the Initiative 

on Volunteering and Service. This fall, she taught a Perspectives course on International Film and played on the JV 

soccer team. After graduation, Aliza expects to return to the nation’s capital. 

108 


Navigating Multiple Cultural Worlds: Women Call Center Workers in Bangalore, India 

Aliza’s main research project has been her work on call center workers in Bangalore, India. She traveled with Professor 

Jayanthi Mistry to Bangalore, India to interview women workers about the ways their lives have changed due to 

working at the call center. 

“Synaptic Scholars has provided me with a way to tie together my diverse interests and to give shape to my Tufts experience. 

I was able to delve into the subjects that interested me, while joining a fun, supportive, and motivated group of 

individuals. I joined not only an intellectual community of peers but also a fun, interesting, and diverse group of friends. 

Through these past three years in the Synaptic Scholars program I have thrust myself headfirst into my intellectual interests, 

learned, made mistakes, and have come out of Tufts with many more questions – but also more passion to continue 

to learn and to challenge my assumptions.” 

PADDEN MURPHY 

Padden came to Tufts University and the Synaptic Scholars from Great Falls, Montana. At Tufts, Padden is a TCU Senator, 

a member of Tufts improvisational comedy troupe CheapSox, and is active in the Institute for Global Leadership. 

He is majoring in International Relations and Chinese. Padden was introduced to the Institute his freshman year 

when he was a member of the 2005-06 EPIIC colloquium on “The Politics of Fear.” With the IGL, Padden traveled with 

Exposure to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he photographed and wrote about the Policia Bonarense and the legacy 

of their involvement in the Dirty War of the 1970s. His photography and essay are published in Exposure’s book, Argentina: 

From the Ruins of a Dirty War, as well as the 2007 IGL calendar. 

Also through the IGL, Padden and two peers co-founded ALLIES (Alliance Linking 

Leaders in Education and the Services), a civil-military relations and security 

studies group facilitating discourse between Tufts and the U.S. Service academies 

through joint research abroad and group events at Tufts, West Point, 

and Annapolis. In 2007, Padden co-organized a Synaptic Scholars research trip 

to Lagos, Nigeria, where he studied Chinese investment and influence in Nigeria 

and Africa. In 2008, Padden was the founding editor of Discourse: the Tufts 

student journal dedicated to the power of reason and the exchange of ideas. 

Padden spent the 2007-2008 academic year studying Chinese in Hangzhou and Harbin, China. During his senior year 

Padden has continued developing Discourse and has also launched the first annual Cheap Sox Laughs of Love Charity 

Comedy Festival. Padden was awarded the Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service and the Marshall 

Hochhauser Prize for the Enrichment of Intellectual Life. Padden will be interning with the Global Financial Integrity 

Project this summer, and will be teaching English at Lishui, Univeristy in Lishui, China in the fall. 

The Power of Reason 

Padden will be presenting on the range of projects he has worked on through the Institute, with a focus on launching 

Discourse, a new undergraduate interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the power of reason and the exchange of 

ideas. 

“The Synaptics Scholars program has truly been an intellectually and personally rewarding experience. If the IGL is an 

incubator of ideas, the Synaptics Scholars program is an incubator of the incubator. It has been a place where I could 

2009-10 Annual Report, Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University 109

share my ideas and learn from peers. Whether on the top of a mountain in New Hampshire or in a slum in Lagos, Nigeria, 

the program has allowed me to explore important questions and see them through different personal and disciplinary 

perspectives. On a personal level, the program is what I hoped college to be, a fusion of intellectual and social life. I am 

grateful for the experience and hope to be a supportive and active Synaptics alum.” 

MORISSA SOBELSON 

Morissa launched her Synaptic Scholars experience in 2006 working at Physicians for Human 

Rights (PHR) in Boston, where she worked with PHR’s Health Action AIDS program, a 

campaign whose leadership includes physician, medical anthropologist, and public health 

guru—and, in fact, the person who most encouraged Morissa to attend Tufts—Dr. Paul 

Farmer. Morissa used the skills and knowledge she gained with PHR to organize a symposium 

in 2006, “Looking Back, Moving Forward: 25 Years of HIV/AIDS.” 

Nurtured by her ongoing interest in health and human rights, the global and local paradox 

of “poverty amidst plenty” she examined while studying the impact of gold mining in 

Ghana in 2006 inspired Morissa to spend the summer of 2007 organizing a regional symposium, 

“Health Disparities and Higher Education.” The event brought together hundreds of students, public health 

experts, researchers, and policy makers to explore health inequity in Boston. She then established an intercollegiate 

organization, the Health Disparities Student Collaborative. 

As a capstone to her college and Synaptics experience, Morissa completed a senior honors thesis entitled “Participation, 

Power, and Place: Roots of the Community Health Center Movement.” The case study for her thesis was the 

Tufts-Delta Health Center, America’s inaugural health center established in the Mississippi Delta in 1965. She received 

the Ted Shapiro Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Thesis (American Studies) and the Sy Bellin Research Prize 

(Community Health) for her thesis. Former co-chair of the Tufts HIV/AIDS Collaborative and Student Health Advisory 

Board, Morissa was a member of the 2009 President’s Marathon Challenge and a winner of the Presidential Award for 

Citizenship and Public Service. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and last year won the Gemma Cifarelli Memorial 

Scholarship. After graduating, she will complete a yearlong city government fellowship, focusing on public health 

programming and policy, with the New York City Urban Fellows Program. 

US Health Disparities and the Community Health Center Movement 

Morissa will present on her senior honors thesis research, entitled “Participation, Power, and Place: Roots of the 

Community Health Center Movement.” This research grew out of several previous Synaptic projects and engaging in 

numerous other community-based health projects in the U.S., Kenya, and Ghana during her four years at Tufts. 

“As one of the participant-coordinators of this inaugural group, I have had the privilege of working with peers and advisors 

to craft our program’s structure and purpose, to organize stimulating events, retreats, and other opportunities, and 

to select and nurture our subsequent classes of Scholars. Developing, coordinating, enhancing, and taking risks with this 

unique student-driven group—one which pushes the boundaries of many pedagogical orthodoxies— is a challenging yet 

extremely valuable undertaking. The program has refined my leadership skills both within this intellectual community 

and in my own activities, linking passions for education, social justice, and health. The rewarding, formative nature of 

each experience is connection – connection between projects and disciplines but, most importantly, between committed 

peers, critical thinkers and compassionate collaborators.” 

110 


ALEXANDRA TAYLOR 

Alex is a senior at Tufts originally from northern California. In addition to being a member of the IGL’s Synaptic 

Scholars, Alex is an active member of the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), an undergraduate-led 

initiative that creates a bridge for shared understanding between future civilian and military leaders. 

Through the Synaptic Scholars program, Alex has found a forum that has 

allowed her to take risks in integrating the fields of international relations 

and cognitive neuroscience through her independent work and research 

internships. At the Jebsen Center, she researched the cognitive and social 

neuroscientific processes underlying individual radicalization. Alex has 

been able to continue combining her interests while interning at the Harvard 

Psychophysiology Lab since the summer of 2007. 

In the summer of 2007, she participated in the inaugural ALLIES Joint 

Research Project (JRP) to Amman, Jordan to study Jordanian counterterrorism 

policy with students from Tufts and the US Military Academy. Alex 

then led the 2008 Joint Research Project with ALLIES co-chair Nancy Henry. 

The 2008 JRP returned to Amman for a month with participants from 

Tufts, The Fletcher School, the US Naval Academy, and the US Military 

Academy. The project culminated with the team’s policy memo presentation at the 2008 ALLIES Intellectual Roundtable 

this past fall. 

Recognizing Cognitive Neuroscience and National Security 

Focusing on issues of national security and radicalization, Alex has engaged in a broad range of projects. She co-led 

the ALLIES Joint Research Project to Jordan to examine the effects of the Iraq War on Jordan, looking at US-Jordanian 

security cooperation, the situation of Iraqi refugees, and the war’s impact on political reforms. She also worked at 

the Harvard Psychophysiology Laboratory as researcher and experimenter on a psychophysiology study examining 

how media-primed identification with a group can influence emotions and beliefs towards other groups and intergroup 

cooperation on cognitive tasks. In addition, she researched the process of individual radicalization through 

social psychology and social neuroscience literature for the PERSEREC Project on Radicalization at the Jebsen Center 

for Counter-Terrorism Studies. 

“My Synaptics experience has enabled me to take risks integrating my interests in ways that I would not have been encouraged 

to do without the support of the program. Coming together week after week with a group of students that 

were excited to hear about my interests and acted as a sounding board for new ideas and new paths to follow has been 

an incredibly positive experience. I have also fed off of the passions of the other students in the group. I am continuously 

impressed with all that they have achieved and I have loved learning about issues in journalism, public health, 

transitional justice, and other areas that I would not have been exposed to or taken a personal interest in otherwise. As 

the program has grown, I have also enjoyed being a resource for the younger students who are beginning the process of 

conducting research and designing their own projects. Most importantly, I have made life long friends who I will continue 

to socialize and think with, from near and far, into the future.” 


ROBERT AND JOANN BENDETSON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY INITIATIVE 

The Bendetson Public Diplomacy Initiative hosted The Honorable Martti Ahtisaari in the fall as part of the Mayer 

Award. President Ahtisaari had been instrumental in working with the Initiative’s Iraq consultations, hosting the first 

two meetings of Iraqis in Helsinki in 2007. He gave a public lecture on “The Leadership Challenges of Public and 

Private Diplomacy.” 

The Initiative also continued its work in Iraq, focusing on the issue of divided cities, and Kirkuk in particular. It is 

working on developing an educational initiative in Kurdistan deriving from the Mayer Award to Dr. Mohammed Ihsan, 

the former Kurdish Human Rights Minister and currently the Minister for Extra-Regional Affairs in the Kurdistan 

Regional Government. 

Photos, clockwise from top left: Dr. Ahtisaari with IGL External Advisory Board Chair and Tufts Trustee Robert Bendetson; Dr. Ahtisaari with Tufts 

Provost Jamshed Bharucha; Fletcher School Dean Stephen Bosworth with IGL External Advisory Board Member Amb. Jonathan Moore; IGL External 

Advisory Board Member Wendy Luers with Dr. Ahtisaari; IGL External Advisory Board Vice Chair William Meserve and former South African 

Minister of Transport Mac Maharaj; Dr. Ahtisaari with IGL External Advisory Board Member Jeff Blum 

112 


EMPOWER 

The Empower Program for Social Entrepreneurship of the Institute for Global Leadership was launched last year and 

significantly developed its program offerings this academic year. 

Empower is primarily a grant giving and internship placement program. Thanks to Tufts alumni Javier Macaya and 

Angelos Metaxa, the Empower Program is growing into a leading campus resource for social entrepreneurship and 

poverty alleviation initiatives. Its accomplishments in this academic year extend well beyond its grant and internship 

placement process. They include establishing the business plan for the program, implementing a new application 

process, institutionalizing external partnerships, and building a network with Boston area social enterprise organizations 

as well as Tufts student groups. Empower has established partnerships with the group Social Entrepreneurs in 

Health, which is a collaborative student organization led by 

graduate students at Harvard, MIT and BU. The program 

has also begun the process of creating an online database 

of resources for social entrepreneurship learning at Tufts. 

The IGL is currently in conversation with its partners to build 

an inter-school online social network in the coming year. 

Consistent with its model of promoting student-led initiatives, 

the IGL hired a first year Fletcher student, Naomi Spitz 

, and a third year undergraduate and former EPIIC student, 

Piyali Kundu, to spearhead these processes as the Empower 

coordinators. 

Establishing the application process for grants and internship placement has been the main activity for the program 

this year. Since it was launched at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007, Empower’s vision has been to offer several 

parallel types of grants and internship placements for Tufts graduate and undergraduate students. To achieve this 

goal, Empower has linked with several leading organizations in the field of social entrepreneurship. Starting this summer, 

students will be placed to work as interns with the social entrepreneurs who are part of The Schwab Foundation 

for Social Entrepreneurship’s network. They will also work with ACORN International at their sites around the world, 

and EDA Capita Connect in India. In addition, Empower has continued to foster its preferential relationships with 

organizations such as ACCION International, Kiva, Endeavor, and Vision Spring. 

In addition, Empower hosted a number 

of successful events, including a discussion 

with Jacqueline Novogratz (right), the 

founder and CEO of Acumen Fund and the 

author of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the 

Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected 

World, and meetings with J.D. 

Bergeron, Kiva Fellows Program Director. 

In April, an outstanding group of students 

was selected for support of their summer 


internships and research endeavors related to microfinance, 

international development and social 

entrepreneurship. The first Empower Class of 2009 

(left) consists of 25 undergraduates and graduate 

students from a variety of majors and fields of 

study. The program is facilitating internships for 

two groups of undergraduates to work with the 

social entrepreneurs in The Schwab Foundation 

for Entrepreneurship’s worldwide network. It also 

granted stipends to ten students for their internships 

with organization such as ACORN International 

(now Community Organizations International), 

CARE, Kiva, UNIDO, and Pro Familia. The Empower 

2009 Class will be working in locations from Cameroon 

to Nepal, Colombia to Rwanda, and many more. EMPOWER also supported the creation of a village women’s 

sewing cooperative in Hacienda Vieja, El Salvador, providing the first employment ever for 12 women. Empower also 

supported the work of IGL programs focused on poverty alleviation, including the work of BUILD, RESPE, PPRI, as well 

as the students’ research in Ethiopia. 

Below are samples of the projects Empower supported this year. 

Emily Freedman’09, Gillian Javetski’11, and Michelle Liu’11 

Internships at Freeplay Foundation, London 

Freeplay Foundation, which falls under the umbrella of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, promotes 

rural development in sub-Saharan Africa. The organization uses sustainable technologies (solar powered radios, 

flashlights, etc.) with the goal of reducing energy poverty. It recognizes the link between energy provisions and 

socio-economic development, and has developed a public/private model to address this need. Emily, Gillian, and 

Michelle have been funded to intern at Freeplay Foundation’s headquarters in London, England for the summer of 

2009. In supporting the work that Freeplay does, they will learn much about energy poverty, economic development, 

rural sub-Saharan Africa, and strategies of effective social entrepreneurship, particularly through their interactions 

with Freeplay Foundation’s professional staff. 

Jeff Goldberg ‘08 

ACCION International 

Over the past few decades, microfinance has seen exponential growth. Yet, despite the potential for access to hundreds 

of millions of dollars of financial capital and the still unmet demand for microfinance services, what lacks is 

strong human capacity to channel capital from the world’s largest financial centers to the remote villages and urban 

dwellings of the poor. The industry is left playing catch-up, trying to educate and train the next generation of management 

and loan officers to provide individual working capital loans among other financial and non-financial services. 

As part of the EMPOWER program, Jeff traveled to Ghana in September 2008 with ACCION International, a leading, 

Boston-based microfinance non-profit, to conduct primary market research on the need for capacity building within 

the Ghanaian microfinance industry. The results of his research, which were delivered to ACCION in October 2008, 

have helped to shape the development of ACCION’s new Global Training Centers initiative. 

114 


Jessica Herrmann ‘09 

The American Nightmare: Exploring the Foreclosure Crisis in Boston 

Jessica interned at Boston Community Capital during the summer of 2008 where she gained an interest in the current 

foreclosure crisis’s impact on Boston communities. She collected various data on bank-owned properties in the 

greater Boston area and used this dataset as the foundation for a Senior Honors Thesis in Economics. Jessica’s research 

explored two aspects of the foreclosure crisis in Boston. First, she used regression analysis to determine the impacts 

of various neighborhood characteristics on the maintenance of foreclosed properties by banks. Second, Jessica 

compared the current foreclosure crisis with the foreclosure crisis in Boston in the early 1990s to determine whether 

foreclosures were more densely concentrated in minority and low-income communities in the current crisis than they 

were in the previous one. Her findings showed that the current foreclosure crisis is more heavily concentrated in 

minority communities in Boston; however, she does not find that banks maintain properties at different levels given 

the concentration of low-income or minority residents in the neighborhood. Her completed thesis received Highest 

Honors from the Economics department and is available through the Tufts Digital Collection and Archives website. 

Katrina Pennington ‘11, Shiri Raphaely ‘09 

The Andean Collection Project 

In January, Katrina and Shiri worked with Fletcher School student Amanda Judge to conduct research in communities 

around Ibarra, Ecuador to contribute towards the foundation of the Andean Project. The Andean Project will be 

a non-profit organization working in partnership with the Andean Collection, a fair trade company founded in 2008 

by Amanda Judge. The Andean Collection works with artisans in Ecuador and exports their jewelry and handcrafts to 

markets in the United States. The research was conducted through interviews, observations and focus groups with 

the purpose of determining need in the community and current income rates. Calculating income was a key part of 

the research in order to evaluate the influence of the Andean Collection involvement in the community and ensure 

that the endeavor would have a positive influence on the artisans’ financial well being. This data was obtained by calculating 

the artisans’ daily per capita expenditure (DPCE). Currently, DPCE ranges from $0.55-$3.88. Questions about 

general well being were asked in order to help determine how the Andean Project can work to improve social welfare. 

These questions determined that the main areas of need were in healthcare and education access. No community 

had a clinic closer then half an hour away and few were able to gain attention from doctors even if they made it to 

the clinic. Education was a challenge, particularly beyond the elementary level, due to low funding for rural schools. 

Future research will be conducted to gather more data and to continue to build relationships with the artisan communities. 

Shailee Pradhan F’09 

Biofuels and its Implications on Food Security, Climate Change, and Energy Security: A Case Study of Nepal 

Ensuring energy security and mitigating climate change are two driving forces behind biofuel production. The debate 

on whether biofuels fulfill such promises is both active and evolving; with links being drawn between the global food 

crisis and biofuel production, the discourse has taken a different turn. While advanced economies like the United 

States and the European Union countries are investing heavily in biofuel production, international organizations like 

the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are blaming 

biofuels for the global food crisis. This has left many, particularly in developing countries, unsure about pursuing 

biofuels as an alternative source of energy. This research examines the case of biofuels in Nepal. Nepal and other 

developing countries can benefit by devising guiding principles on biofuel production that do not compromise food 

security and the environment. This research tries to bridge the knowledge gap, presenting trade-offs among biofuels, 

environment, and food security, allowing policymakers to make informed decisions. 


Gaurav Relhan F’10 

Industrial Policy Analysis for Technology Promotion in Africa, UNIDO 

As an unfortunate consequence of various policy measures aimed at bridging the existing gaping digital divide of 

ECOWAS African countries, the consumer appetite of the rapidly increasingly global computer market has led to the 

ECOWAS region becoming one of the world’s latest and largest dumping destinations for second-hand computing 

material from developed nations. An estimated 500 shipping containers carrying such e-waste pass through Lagos 

alone each month. Recent studies show that the excess toxicity in the region’s soil and drinking water supply -- attributed 

to the seepage of chemicals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, etc. from the millions of unwanted PCs dumped 

nearby -- has severely increased the environmental risk, exposing grazing farm and wild animals, plants, and people 

to irreversible health impairment. Research at Nigeria’s University of Ibadan has warned of a “chemical time bomb 

scenario”, with rural populations particularly susceptible to these toxic substances. 

In this context, as an Industrial Development adviser, one of Gaurav’s tasks will be to research and implement e-waste 

recycling possibilities in ECOWAS countries, with particular emphasis on the concept of ‘computer-refurbishment’ as 

an intermediate step towards handling e-waste. Already, UNIDO has established computer-refurbishment centers in 

Uganda. What remains to be seen is the scope of opportunity that exists for UNIDO to replicate the Uganda model in 

other regions as well. 

Radhika Saraf ‘11 

SPARC, India 

By 2025, half the world’s population will be living in cities, and one billion people will be living in slums. In Mumbai 

alone, more than six million people live in slums. The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) is 

an Indian NGO that supports two people’s movements - the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila 

Milan (MM). NSDF and MM organize hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers and pavement dwellers to address issues 

related to urban poverty, and collectively produce solutions for affordable housing and sanitation. Radhika Saraf will 

have an internship with SPARC in which she will research urban sanitation and education. 

Alice Tin ‘10 

CARE, Nicaragua 

Alice will be traveling to Tola, Nicaragua, where she will be pursuing an internship through the Foundation for Sustainable 

Development, which is a non-profit based in San Francisco that offers internship placements with grassroots 

organizations in various countries. She will be working in Puesto de Salud Salinas, a rural community health clinic, 

where she will be administering a health needs survey, teaching some public health education classes and assisting 

with the daily functions of the clinic. This work will directly benefit the residents of Tola, raise awareness of public 

health issues and generate data that will improve the services of the clinic and substantiate future grant applications 

that will sustain the clinic in the future. 

Following that, she will be working with CARE International to develop a risk communication/emergency preparedness 

plan for infectious diseases in the rural communities near the Nicaragua-Honduras border. She will be based in 

the Northern city of Estelí in Nicaragua and will be traveling between communities in Honduras and El Salvador as 

well. It is extremely important to build international cooperation and infrastructure and social capacity to respond 

to these disease outbreaks. 

116 


Julie Zollmann, F’10 

Developing a learning agenda around CARE’s conservation agriculture program, Tamale, Ghana 

The livelihoods of millions of small farmers in Africa are threatened by declining soil fertility and subsequent poor 

yields. In many countries, this is also driving deforestation as farmers seek new, more fertile cropland. Conservation 

agriculture (CA)—characterized by zero or minimum soil tillage, continuous soil cover through mulch or cover crops, 

and crop rotation—can help retain soil moisture, increase soil organic matter, reduce erosion, reduce labor inputs, 

and significantly boost yields and incomes over the long term. The international development and relief agency, 

CARE, has begun to develop a multi-country portfolio of conservation agriculture projects in sub-Saharan Africa to 

demonstrate effective ways to improve smallholder farmers’ yields and sustainable livelihoods. Julie will be helping 

to tie the programs together under a unified learning agenda, first working from CARE’s Atlanta headquarters, then 

traveling to Tamale, Ghana to develop and field test a set of adapted monitoring tools. 

While conducting their fieldwork, students will stay connected with the Empower program via an online blog and a 

web forum. They will also present their work and share their experiences with the Tufts community upon their return. 

The link to their shared blog is http://empower2009.blogspot.com. 

Some sample posts from the blog: 

Loans for women aren’t always used by women 

Speaking in ideal terms, an NGO model would always be motivated by the social impact of every loan and therefore hand 

out the money where it is most needed. A for-profit model, on the other hand, being a money churning machine pushed 

by volumes will attempt to reach out to the largest number of reliable clients it can. The social impact in the latter’s case 

is almost always incidental and never the primary motive. 

Even though Sahayata’s loans are given out strictly to women, the loan (mostly in cases of joint families which run a 

single business) is actually used up by the elders or the men of the house for the family business. One of the down sides 

of a for profit model is exactly this - no premium is ever actually placed on empowering the woman, the priority lies in 

collecting back the loan with interest. Of course its hard to argue that the family (and consequentially the woman herself) 

didn’t benefit from the loan given out. 

Posted by Dwijo 

Do Poor Soils Make Poor People? 

“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt 

In his 2005 book Collapse, Jared Diamond explored the causes for social decline throughout history, pointing consistently 

to failures in land, particularly soil, management. Deforestation led often to erosion, which coupled with population 

growth and land fragmentation pushed societies beyond their capacity to support themselves. Could it be that such processes 

cause not just social collapse, but also inhibit growth and poverty reduction? In other words, do poor soils make 

poor people? 

My colleagues here in Ghana are somewhat confused by my interest in agriculture, given that my background is in 

economics. The explanation is simple. When I look at soil, I don’t see dirt, I see assets. Soil is by far the most important 

asset of Africa’s rural poor. But due to a confluence of factors, that asset is rapidly depreciating in terms of productive 

capacity. 


Last week as I toured the farmer field schools CARE Ghana’s Conservation Agriculture Project, I asked farmers why they 

were interested in participating. The schools require about half a day of their time every week through the growing season. 

That time has an opportunity cost, since it requires them not to be working their own fields and not keeping pace 

with their many other duties. At school, they spend much of their time doing physical work and they receive no handouts 

of inputs, tools, or t-shirts to keep them coming back. So why did they come so loyally? They told me about the land. 

Not so very long ago, in their grandparents’ generation, families had large tracts of land. Yields were good as they moved 

from one area to the next, allowing fallow land to rest and restore its natural fertility as organic matter lived, died, and 

was reincorporated into the soil. But, as more children were born, those larger lands were divided among heirs and 

families were left with smaller plots and too little land to leave plots fallow for very long, if at all. They burned trees and 

crop residue as a means to more quickly force organic matter into the soil. Then the trees began to run out. Now, after 

watching yields decline for the past decade, watching the soils become increasingly loose and sandy, and unable to afford 

adequate chemical fertilizers to compensate for deprived soils, they’ve joined CARE to see if maybe they can learn new 

ways to restore their land and, through it, their livelihoods. 

Agriculture—and particularly the emphasis on soil health—is nothing new, nothing flashy. It’s about getting back to 

basics instead of promising quick fix solutions to deeply rooted challenges. But, if we are to make an impact against food 

insecurity, climate change, and poverty, particularly in Africa, we’d better get our noses to the ground and get serious 

about soil. Yep, dirt. 

Posted by Julie 

Looking to the next semester and the start of new academic year 2009-2010, Empower’s priority is to integrate the 

first class of grantees after their summer experiences as an active student community. In addition, the program will 

pilot a mentorship network and database with alumni who volunteered to help guide further grantees. This will be 

part of a larger process to foster new partnerships and internship opportunities, bringing more alumni into the Empower 

network as active participants and contributors. 

118 


International Resilience Project 

Resilience seminars, panel discussions, and workshops (2008-9) 

Over the past year, the IRP sponsored, led, and/or hosted ten high level seminars, panel discussions and workshops 

designed to engage participants (including Tufts students, graduate and undergraduate) in rigorous exploration of the 

interdisciplinary intersections of theory and empirical research evidence on the human, institutional, and environmental 

dimensions of resilience. A summary of the highlights of each event follows: 

• July 2008 International Resilience Seminar hosted by Professor Gillian Lewando Hundt, Warwick University’s Institute 

of Health co-director. This was facilitated by the Institute of Advanced Studies, Short Term Visiting Fellows 

Program at Warwick University which allowed Astier Almedom to collaborate with Gordon Adam, Managing Director 

of Media Support (UK) in presenting the keynotes; and Evelyn Brensinger, Fletcher School Masters in Law and Diplomacy 

(MALD) candidate, participated as the Discussant with co-sponsorship support of the IGL-IRP. The seminar was 

attended by about 15 participants from Warwick and other Universities in the British Midlands region, representing 

faculty, doctoral students, and post-doctoral fellows. The seminar and discussion focused on definitions of resilience, 

contested notions of “identity”, and the role of mass media, particularly radio broadcasts in promoting and building 

resilience in conflict and other disaster/emergency settings in Africa and Asia. 

• August 2008 Astier Almedom was invited to introduce the concept of resilience and the resilience index for gauging 

health and human security at a three-day seminar entitled “Preventing Conflict, Creating Resilient Societies” 

organized by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Development Cooperation Directorate led by Ambassador Irene 

Freudenschuss-Reichl in collaboration 

with Professor Ola Dahlman and others 

within the framework of the 64th European 

Forum Alpbach 2008 (right) whose 

theme was “Perception and Decision”. 

The seminar participants included over 

20 African Ambassadors to the UN; other 

diplomats including two Fletcher alumni, 

Mme Ambassador Sedia Massaquoi-Bangoura, 

Ambassador of Liberia to Germany, 

France, and Austria; and Ms. Ismat Jahan, 

Ambassador to the UN and Permanent 

Representative of Bangladesh; leaders of 

the UN Peace Building Commission (PBC), New York, and key Vienna-based non-governmental organizations as well 

as interested members of the Austrian academic community. Among the presenters/discussants at the seminar was 

also Tufts University and IGL-EPIIC alumnus Mr. Jake Sherman from New York University. This seminar resulted in 

the design and planning of a collaborative project through a series of follow-up meetings held in Vienna with the 

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) taking the lead. 

• October 2008 Dr. Robert van Buskirk, Physicist, Energy Efficiency Standards Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 

and “The Village Projects” developed in Eritrea presented a seminar on “Community-based sustainable development 


in Africa: How to practically promote synergies in climate mitigation, poverty reduction, health improvement and 

resilience.” The event was co-sponsored by the Tufts Energy and Climate Forum, the Center for International Environment 

and Resource Policy (CIERP), Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE), and the Economics department. 

• November 2008 (1) The IGL-IRP co-sponsored the inaugural international conference of the Center for Rebuilding 

Sustainable Communities at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Astier Almedom organized, moderated and 

contributed to a panel on “Rebuilding Community Resilience”. All participants of Professor Almedom’s Fletcher seminar 

class (International Humanitarian Policy and Public Health – DHP-P216) attended the conference. The invited 

panelists were Dr. Mindy Fullilove (Columbia University and Root Shock Institute, NYC), Mr. Wade Rathke (ACORN, 

International), and Professor Richard Williams (University of Glamorgan, Wales). 

• November 2008 (2) Panel Discussion with the above three 

invited speakers moderated by Astier Almedom on “Building 

Resilience in Cities: Case studies from New York, London, 

and New Orleans” for EPIIC class immediately following the 

UMass Boston conference listed above (right). IGL-EPIIC students 

engaged in a lively discussion, and some have continued 

to engage with ACORN-International on various internships. 

• January 2009 (1) The lecture/seminar was organized and 

hosted by the national youth organization of the People’s 

Front on Democracy and Justice and was open to the public. 

• January 2009 (2) Astier Almedom was invited to speak at the Institute for National Security and Counter Terrorism, 

Syracuse University, Workshop on “Measuring Resilience and Adaptive Capacity for Local Populations” organized and 

co-led by Professor Pat Longstaff and INSCT Research Fellow, PhD candidate Nicholas Armstrong. 

• March 2009 (1) Professor Lance Gunderson, Emory University and Resilience Alliance Board member presented 

a seminar on “Resilience in Ecosystems and Institutions”. The event was co-sponsored by the Stockholm Environment 

Institute (SEI-US) and Tufts University’s interdisciplinary graduate Program, Water: Systems, Science and Society 

(WSSS), the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP), The Environmental Studies Program, 

and the Biology Department. 

• March 2009 (2) Astier Almedom was a panelist at the Skoll World Forum 2009 in the thematic session “Speaking 

innovation to power: the uses and abuses of power in social innovation” moderated by Professor Frances Westley. 

• May 2009 Astier Almedom was Discussant at the Wadham College Seminar on Sustainable Development focusing on 

Foreign Aid moderated by Sir Neil Chalmers with the keynote presented by Mr. Kenneth Woods. 

• In anticipation of continued discussions stemming from the above and as the original follow-up to our first “International 

Resilience Workshop – Talloires 2007”, the International Resilience Forum (IRF) was successfully launched 

online in September 2008 under the auspices of Tufts University’s Academic Technology department in collaboration 

120 


with Sheryl Barnes and David Grogan using the Wiki technology led by Evelyn Brensinger and Astier Almedom. The 

IRF re-launch is planned for Fall 2009 on an upgraded, more user-friendly system. 

Funding 

• External Funding of $14,140 from the Christensen Fund’s “Global Biocultural Initiative – Institutions and Policies: 

Wisdom and Practice” was awarded to Astier Almedom in support of the IRP program plans to publish and disseminate 

a special issue of the African Health Sciences journal on the application of resilience theory to understanding individual, 

community and environmental sustainability in crisis and change; as well as upgrade computer and internet 

access for this important on-line and print journal. The journal is indexed by MEDLINE and Pub-Med, and all volumes 

are accessible free of charge at http://www.ajol.info/viewissue.php?jid=45&id=5939&ab=ahs 

and http://www.bioline.org.br/toc?id=hs . 

Publications 

• Refereed Journal Articles: 

a. Almedom, A.M. (2008) Resilience research and policy/practice discourse in health, social, behavioral, and 

environmental sciences over the last ten years. African Health Sciences 8: S5-S13. 

b. Glandon, D.M., Muller, J., Almedom, A.M. (2008) Resilience in post-Katrina New Orleans, Louisiana: A 

preliminary study. African Health Sciences 8: S21-S27. Permission for Social Policy Magazine to reprint an 

excerpt of this article in its Spring/Summer 2009 Issue http://www.socialpolicy.org/ was granted by the AHS. 

c. Strauch, A.M., Muller, J., Almedom, A.M. (2008) Exploring the dynamics of social-ecological resilience in 

East and West Africa: Preliminary evidence from Tanzania and Niger. African Health Sciences 8: S28-S32. 

• Book Chapters: 

a. Almedom, A.M., Brensinger, E.A., Adam, G. M. (2009) Identifying the ‘Resilience Factor’: An emerging 

counter narrative to the traditional discourse of vulnerability in ‘social suffering’. In Living Through Intended 

and Unintended Suffering: War, Medicine and Gender edited by Hannah Bradby and Gillian Lewando Hundt, 

Avebury: Ashgate (forthcoming). 

b. Nayr, A., Salh, O.N., Almedom, A.M. (2009) “Community organizing to end displacement in Eritrea: A 

narrative of community and institutional resilience.” In Global Grassroots: An Organizing Perspective edited 

by Wade Rathke, Social Policy Press (forthcoming). 

Teaching and Advising 

Astier Almedom taught two seminar courses in the Fall semester and accepted a directed study/research project student 

in the Spring semester, as detailed below. 

• Courses, Fall: 

a. International Humanitarian Policy and Public Health (DHP-P216), a graduate seminar course among many 

in the “Human Security” distribution requirements; and an elective for the MPH Program. An academic 

technology-supported electronic discussion tool was introduced to the class and facilitated by Evelyn 

Brensinger with positive results. 

b. Social Capital and Mental Health (CH190) this seminar is offered to both undergraduate and graduate 


students through the School of Arts and Sciences, Community Health Program. It continues to count towards 

International Relations and Community Health undergraduate research seminar requirements. 

• Course, Spring: 

a. Directed Study (INTR 196), Matthew Gordon (International Relations major, Africa and the New World 

minor) successfully completed his research resulting in an outstanding essay on resilience focusing on 

narratives of meaning making in the international humanitarian discourse 

b. Guest lecture: Occupational Therapy Department (Tufts University) graduate seminar on November 6th 

2008. 

Academic advisees: recent graduates (* denotes IGL-EPIIC student) 

• Arianna Rubin* – Magna cum laude International Relations and Community Health, 2009. 

•Mary Langan* – Summa cum laude International Relations, 2009. 

•Jocelyn Grupp Müller - PhD 2009. External Examiner: Dr. Lance Gunderson, Emory University and the 

Resilience Alliance). Thesis title: Including local voices in global discourse in biodiversity conservation: An 

ethnobotanical study in Boumba, Niger (Park W). Dr. Müller’s research was funded by the National Science 

Foundation (NSF) doctoral fellowship, augmented by several smaller grants and conference travel funds 

offered by the Henry R. Luce Program in Science & Humanitarianism directed by Astier Almedom. 

Continuing advisees 

•Alice Taylor, Fletcher School, MALD candidate (2009- ) working on resilience and social capital in Colombia. 

• Evelyn Brensinger, Fletcher School, MALD candidate (2007-9) working on resilience and human 

(international) security including fieldwork in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

122 


Poverty and Power Research Initiative (PPRI) 

The Poverty and Power Research Initiative spent the 2008-09 academic year expanding the breadth and depth of its 

research of inequality, governance, and political economy by adding the Philippines as a second case study. This new 

country focus has built on PPRI’s previous research in Guatemala and allowed the group to expand membership, 

develop new forms of creative output, and gain a more nuanced perspective into the roles of oligarchies and United 

States foreign policy in affecting poverty in the developing world. 

The summer of 2008 facilitated a follow up research trip for three of PPRI’s members to Guatemala City, Guatemala. 

These members were housed with students at the University of Francisco Marroquin through the EPRI (Political 

Studies and International Relations) Institute, which provided logistical and contact support, as well as informative 

lectures on Guatemalan history. Iris Wei-cheng Liu, an American University student, accompanied them on this trip. 

Though the agreement between PPRI and EPRI professor Carlos Gavino was ended in order to facilitate more time and 

effort on PPRI’s direct research, EPRI maintains a positive relationship with the Institute for Global Leadership and 

sent four students to attend the 2009 EPIIC Symposium on “Global Cities.” The PPRI students also developed a closer 

intellectual relationship with Professor Nicholas Virzi, head of the Economics Department at the University of Rafael 

Landivar, who provided crucial examples for the group on how the Guatemalan coffee elite dominates the political 

and economic processes. 

Mid-way through the summer research trip, six PPRI members attended the Leaders of the Present Central American 

leadership conference hosted by the Project on Justice in Times of Transition in Antigua, Guatemala. The students 

assisted with planning, logistics, and translation and interacted with youth leaders from all across Central America. 

The students met Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, who spoke at the event, as well as youth mentors such as Jan 

Urban, Czech journalist and dissident and EPIIC alumnus Teny Oded Gross, head of the Institute for the Study and 

Practice of Nonviolence in Providence, Rode Island. 

In July and August, students in PPRI co-authored their first findings paper about the role of the United States Millennium 

Challenge Corporation (MCC) in Guatemala. The finished product was sent to the MCC and subsequently cited in 

the MCC’s November 2008 publication on the MCC Effect. The name “Poverty and Power Research Initiative” was also 

formally adopted from the previous group name of “Oligarchies and Power” Group. 

In the fall semester of 2008, PPRI engaged several new Fletcher students, EPIIC members, and undergraduates otherwise 

unaffiliated with the IGL. Four group members traveled to Washington, DC, in November for a series of interviews 

with the Philippines Embassy, World Bank, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Center for Global Development, 

Global Integrity. 

During the spring semester, PPRI students received peer-reviewed feedback on the research papers they had written 

at the end of the Fall 2008 semester. These culminated in intra-group presentations and discussions on each topic. 

The group also adopted a more ambitious reading schedule. Further, they looked more deeply into the role of the 

MCC in the Philippines, deconstructing its scorecard and understanding its status as a Compact Eligible country. Students 

also began investigating Philippine news websites. 


The research trip to the Philippines took place in March 

2009. PPRI hired local journalist Alan Tanjusay (right) to arrange 

interviews in Manila, and benefitted by having the opportunity 

to visit an urban slum and conduct interviews with 

several prominent persons including Senator Panfilo M. Lacson 

and acclaimed journalist Billy Esposo. Further, PPRI was 

put into contact with Jaime Zobel de Ayala, lead businessman 

in the Philippines’ third wealthiest and most prominent 

family, whose employees at the Ayala Foundation arranged 

interviews at the Board of Investments, Department 

of Trade and Industry, San Miguel Corporation, Department 

of Finance, World Bank, SM Investments, Makati Business 

Club, and Bank of the Philippine Islands microfinance division. 

Other interviewees included prominent Senator Jamby 

Madrigal, Lawrence Greenwood, Vice President of the Asian 

Development Bank, Carlos Gavino and Christian Hougan at 

USAID, Larry Memmott at the US Embassy, and representatives 

from the real estate group Jones Lang Lasalle Leechiu. 

INSPIRE Fellow and investigative economist James Henry accompanied 

the students on the research trip. 

One outcome of the trip’s research has been the production of the Wealthography of the Philippines (below) by PPRI/ 

EPIIC freshman Cody Valdes. This four-page document maps out each prominent family in the Philippines, their political 

and social connections, and most active members. 

124 


Upon returning from the Philippines, PPRI conducted two further interviews on the Tufts campus. The first was 

with Fletcher Dean Bosworth, former Ambassador to the Philippines, who reflected on the Philippines as being “the 

only Central American country in Southeast Asia” and spoke to the role of religion, education, and migration in entrenching 

poverty. At his recommendation, three PPRI students also met with Miguel Basanez at the Cultural Change 

Institute at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Prof. Basanez spoke to the role and evolution of culture in 

developing countries and its correspondence to religious values, provoking further though about the effectiveness of 

policy and social change models in addressing Philippine inequality. 

PPRI is looking forward to finishing their follow up research to the MCC in the coming months, and intends to produce 

some articles for Global Post. Additionally, they are looking forward to developing a strategic working relationship 

with the Global Financial Integrity Project in Washington, DC where group member Rachel Brown is interning this 

summer. 


RESPE 

RESPE: Ayiti, comprised of RESPE: Boston and RESPE:Balan, 

has been working towards increasing collaborative partnerships, 

fund raising, and promoting their partnership over 

the last year. Highlights of the second semester included 

health research and the beginnings of an EWB project in Balan, 

a benefit dinner, an exhibition in the Slater Concourse 

gallery, and the Haitian students’ visit to Boston to participate 

in the 2008-09 EPIIC Symposium Global Cities. 

Over the summer of 2008, the RESPE team, including two 

community health students, Community Health professor 

Linda Sprague-Martinez, and a leader of the Somerville Haitian 

community, began a research endeavor with the community 

that would serve as the basis for all future health-related 

development activities: RESPE asked the community to 

define what health actually meant for them. To do this, they 

worked with their Balan community partners to develop a 

series of questions that would give the community an opportunity 

to define all the facets of health they experienced, 

and then trained them on how to conduct focus groups. Following 

that, the community partners led the way and set 

up one male and one female focus group in six regions of 

the community, which all had spectacular turnouts and participation. 

After the first set of focus groups, the community 

partners essentially ran the focus groups themselves, which 

they expressed helped even them get a better understanding 

of the priorities of their neighbors. 

Following the trip the health assessment was continued on 

campus. Linda Martinez, of the community health department, 

conducted a small independent study with three 

students from the August trip to process the results of the 

health research. The students worked to develop a code tree 

to help sort the transcripts from the hours of focus group 

interviews. The students were able to conceptualize the 

health data and begin to write a research paper on the perceptions 

of women’s health in Balan. 

The RESPE teams also used this research to come up with 

a project proposal that would as closely as possible fit the 

priorities highlighted in the focus groups. The end result was 

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the “Grassroots Health Initiative”, a cross between a community 

health “train the trainers” and “mobile clinic” models 

designed to promote health in a sustainable way throughout 

even the most isolated parts of the community. There 

will be a follow up trip by RESPE: Boston in the summer of 

2009 to assess the training. 

Also as part of this trip, RESPE invited a team of engineering 

students involved with the Tufts Chapter of Engineers 

Without Borders (EWB) to travel to Balan to asses infrastructure 

and investigate future engineering projects in the community. 

The engineering team participated with the RESPE 

team throughout the health assessment to learn about the 

health needs that have technical solutions. The team talked 

with an agronomist and groups of farmers to learn about 

agricultural practices and irrigation methods. 

The team also met with different community leaders in 

different neighborhoods to learn about water access and 

availability throughout Balan and discuss energy and transportation 

needs. Following the trip, the students have been 

working with the Tufts chapter of Engineers Without Borders 

to organize a future project in Balan through the national 

organization. 

One of the first steps towards beginning this more formal 

project occurred in February when the EWB group brought 

representatives from Balan to meet with students and discuss 

the community’s resources and priorities. Through 

a handful of meetings between the Haitian and Tufts students, 

the group was able to understand each other’s limits 

and abilities and propose future projects. 

This exchange also helped introduce younger Tufts engineering 

students and new EWB members to the needs of a 

rural community in the developing world and gave them a 

personal connection with the community. This exchange of 

bringing representatives to the campus for an assessment 

rather than the usual model of sending students to the community 

could be a new precedent for rethinking the way 

development groups on campuses understand their partnerships 

and function. 


The Haitian students’ visit to Boston in February 2009 gave 

them an opportunity to represent their community within 

Boston. They met with RESPE: Ayiti’s various partners, including 

members of the Somerville Haitian Coalition, members 

of the Christian Haitian Entrepreneurial Society, engineering 

students, and a Tufts MPH student. The students 

were able to speak in various classrooms, including the new 

Experimental College Creole class and one of Steve Cohen’s 

education classes. Jeff Aresty of Peacetones also met with 

the students to discuss a future project involving social entrepreneurship, 

e-commerce law, and local musicians from 

Balan. 

Through the benefit dinner, RESPE was able to raise over 

$500 for its Grassroots Health Initiative, or mobile health 

clinic, for Balan. Various members of the local Boston Haitian 

diaspora were able to come together over dinner and 

music to talk about RESPE and future fund raising. The 

gallery exhibition was an opportunity to reach out to the 

Tufts community. Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou (With many hands 

the burden is light), the title of the exhibition, signifies the 

cooperative teamwork behind RESPE. Paintings from local 

artists in Balan were displayed and sold, along with photographs, 

research papers, and other materials from the prior 

research trips. 

The Tufts students also continued working on their research topics. Valerie 

Schenkman is looking at secondary education and is in the final stages of 

producing a documentary based on the stories of three students, their teachers, 

and families, which looks at the challenges of completing a high school 

education within the rural community of Balan. 

Also during the second semester, and building on the first semester’s directed 

study work, general engineering major and senior Adam White continued 

working with Professor Martinez to assess the reverse exchange conducted in 

February, using surveys of Tufts students involved and continued research on 

the methods and role of RESPE in undergraduate health education. These papers 

are a work in progress, which will help to illustrate the effects of RESPE 

on the re-education of the students involved and help to encourage more 

community partnerships between undergraduate students and developing 

communities. 

128 


SAMPLE INDIVIDUAL EVENTS 

The IGL sponsored a number of public events throughout the year, including: 

“Reporting a Dangerous World” 

The IGL sponsored the Boston Launch of dispatches, a new 

quarterly journal which reaches beyond what and who to 

the more crucial why and what can be done? Writers and 

photographers go to the heart of reality to reflect what they 

see without editorial pressures or commercial constraints. 

Reliable reporting and analysis are set within human contexts 

and a historical continuum. Institute students and 

alumni are interning with dispatches. 

The launch featured a panel discussion on “Reporting a Dangerous World,” with seasoned 

journalists looking at ways to reinvent coverage of an imperiled planet in a 

digital age. The journalists who participated were James H. Henry, Journalist and 

Author of The Blood Bankers: Tales from the Global Underground Economy; Sebastian 

Junger (top right), Journalist, Correspondent for Vanity Fair, and Author of The Perfect 

Storm; Gary Knight, Photojournalist and Founding Director, VII Photo Agency, Coeditor 

and Art Director, dispatches; Yuri Kozyrev, Photojournalist and Contract Photographer, 

TIME Magazine; Mort Rosenblum (bottom right), Journalist, Former Chief 

Correspondent, Associated Press, and former Editor in Chief, International Herald Tribune; 

and Charles Sennott, Co-founder, Vice President and Executive Editor, Global 

Post, and Former Middle East Bureau Chief and Correspondent, The Boston Globe. 

The evening was cosponsored by dispatches, Global Post, the Edward R. Murrow Center 

at The Fletcher School, and the Communications and Media Studies program. 

“What We’ll Know on Election Day” 

Just before the election, the IGL brought alumnus and New York Times 

Magazine National Correspondent Matt Bai (left) back to campus to 

speak on “What We’ll Know on Election Day.” Bai writes on national 

politics for the New York Times Magazine, where he is covering the 2008 

presidential campaign. Bai’s recent work has included cover stories on 

John McCain’s philosophy about war and Barack Obama’s strategy to 

win over white men, as well as a much-discussed cover essay titled, “Is 

Obama the End of Black Politics?” During the 2008 primaries, Bai wrote 

a popular online blog, “The Primary Argument,” on the New York Times 

website. He is the author of The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and 

the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. The book, which chronicles 

the rise of the first Internet-age political movement and the people who built it, was honored as a New York Times 

Notable Book for 2007. The talk was cosponsored by the Tufts Democrats and the Tufts Republicans. 


PUBLICATIONS 

This year, the IGL published the second volume of its journal Discourse, the ALLIES Joint Research Project Recommendations 

from Jordan, and two calendars, one for 2009 and one for 2010 as it seeks nationwide distribution. De.MO 

and its founding designer Giorgio Baravalle continue to work with the IGL to design many of its publications, including 

Discourse and its annual calendar. 

DISCOURSE 

With substantial funding from the Tufts Community Union Senate, the second volume of Discourse: The Tufts Interdisciplinary 

Journal Dedicated to the Power of Reason and the Exchange of Ideas was published, featuring a broad range 

of articles and photos from students, alumni and experts. Below is the table of contents: 

• The Forgotten Crisis: How High Food Prices Have 

Impoverished Millions and Threatened Governments, 

Austin Blair Siadak 

• Do No Harm? The Security Development Complex, 

Ashraf Ghani 

• A Battle over Mines and Minds in El Salvador, Hannah Flamm 

• The Complexity of Powerlessness, Saskia Sassen 

• American Nightmare: Understanding the Mortgage Crisis, 

Jessica Herrmann 

Sidebar: Relief on the Way? President Obama’s 

Housing Plan 

• Photo Essay: Pakistan: Between Bhutto and the Border, 

Nichole Sobeki 

• Photo Essay: The Evening of Our Lives: Elegy for 

Akonyi Bedo, Samuel James 

• Mato Oput: Rethinking Transitional Justice in Northern 

Uganda, Jessica Anderson 

• Do You Believe in Second Chances? A Roundtable 

Discussion, Nathaniel Teichman 

• Poetry, Jesse Welch 

• Notes from a Chicago Boy 

• Art Just Permanent Enough To Be Beautiful 

Before The World Remembers How Insignificant We Are 

ALLIES Jordan JRP Recommendations 

The research in these policy recommendations was conducted in June 2008 and published in October 2008 with the 

generous support of the Compton Foundation. Its authors are the 11 members of the JRP: Alex J. Burtness, USNA 

130 


2010; Tim Fitzsimons, Tufts 2010; Mia Hencinski, USNA 2010; Nancy Henry, Tufts 2009; Chas Morrison, Tufts 2011; 

Margaret O’Connor, Tufts 2010; Ivette Tarrida, Fletcher 2009; Zachary Tedoff, USMA 2009; and Sally White, USMA 

2009. Below is an overview of the recommendations: 

United States Democracy Promotion in Jordan 

Introduction 

In 2003 the United States embarked upon a long-term strategy to 

defeat terrorism and secure peace and stability by supporting democratic 

transitions in the Middle East. This strategy was the underlying 

principle of what is now known as the “Freedom Agenda,” the 

Bush Administration’s foreign policy paradigm for Arab states. 

In the case of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, popular perceptions 

of US actions in the region have significantly undermined the 

credibility of US democracy promotion efforts within Jordan. 

The Freedom Agenda has been institutionalized through funding 

allocations and new bureaucracies and, as a result, the next administration 

is likely to continue the US’ pursuit of democratic transformations 

in the Middle East. Credibility is key to the success of these 

efforts. Therefore, the United States can and must take immediate 

steps to reduce inconsistencies in American regional strategy that 

exist in the mind of Jordanians. 

Recommendation 1: Tone Down the Rhetoric of the “Freedom Agenda” The United States should limit the ambitious 

rhetoric of the “Freedom Agenda” and its democracy promotion exhortation so that it is more consistent with the 

feasible range of action and attainable goals. 

Recommendation 2: Identify Attainable Political Goals 

The United States should focus its democracy promotion efforts on attainable political goals in Jordan such as youth 

engagement, civil education, and building tools for an independent press and media. 

Recommendation 3: Engage with the Islamic Action Front 

The Islamic Action Front should be included in US outreach to Jordanian political parties, in order to gain a more 

holistic view of Jordanian politics and identify projects that a wider set of reform advocates will support. 

Recommendation 4: Channel Democracy aid through Different Sources 

American funding for democracy promotion should not be channeled through the State Department, but rather 

though organizations with a degree of separation from other foreign policy actions, such as the United Nations 

Development Program (UNDP), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the National Endowment for Democracy 

(NED), the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), or other international and regional non-governmental 

organizations. 


United States-Jordanian Security Cooperation 

Introduction 

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has proven to be one of the United State’ most valuable Middle Eastern allies. Its 

geo-strategic location enables it to play a major role in the region, but being small and lacking natural resources, it 

also predestines it for greater vulnerability as its fate is tied to the political and economic futures of its neighbors. 

In its efforts to promote a secure and stable Iraq, US foreign policy in the Middle East needs to empower Jordan as a 

country and as a regional leader. 

Recommendation 1: Build Up the Capability of the Iraqi Police To Ensure Security 

The United States and Jordan should resume their partnership to train and equip Iraqi police officers, in order to 

gradually and fully restore their responsibility for policing, public order, and counterinsurgency operations. 

Recommendation 2: Allow for a Successful Political Process To Ensure Political Stability 

The United States should encourage Jordan to spearhead a region-wide diplomatic surge of Arab political engagement 

with the Iraqi government. 

Recommendation 3: Enhance the Appropriate Financial Channels To Ensure Reconstruction 

The United States should reconsider and re-evaluate the various channels through which it provides financial assistance 

for the reconstruction of Iraq. 

Iraqi Refugees In Jordan 

Introduction 

Currently, ten percent of Iraq’s population is externally displaced; the office of the United Nations High Commissioner 

for Refugees gives a high estimate of 2.2 million displaced Iraqis. That ten percent includes virtually every ethnic, 

religious, and socioeconomic group in Iraq. A large swath of this externally displaced population is held in limbo in 

Jordan, unable to work or go to school, with only a small percentage receiving just enough cash assistance and basic 

social services to survive. The inability to support their families, further their educations, or plan for their futures is 

demoralizing and a waste of valuable skills that could contribute to rebuilding Iraq. If the United States addresses the 

Iraqi refugee crisis in a well-thought, long-term plan, it can restore this human capital to Iraqi society. If it addresses 

the crisis poorly, Iraqis living in exile may have little to offer their country, if they return at all. Additionally, if the 

United States does not address the crisis well, it will leave its primary Arab ally with a large, unemployed, vulnerable 

and angry refugee population. By saddling Jordan with such a large burden and draining Iraq of its valuable human 

capital, the United States would leave the region worse off, both for its citizens and for US interests. 

Recommendation 1: Establish a Semiannual Survey 

The United States government should use its diplomatic channels to ensure the implementation of a semiannual, 

impartial survey of the numbers and characteristics of the post-2003 Iraqi refugee population. 

Recommendation 2: Normalize the Status of Displaced Iraqis 

The United States should utilize its influence and provide conditional aid in order to ensure a protective status specifically 

for Iraqis in Jordan that includes the right to work. 

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Recommendation 3: Improve Processing of US Resettlement Requests 

The United States government must meet its commitments to Iraqis that have worked with the US government and 

military in Iraq. It must use full diplomatic force in Jordan to fulfill the annual quotas prescribed by Defense Authorization 

Act of 2008 and streamline the process of resettlement of the caseloads given to the embassy by UNHCR. 

Recommendation 4: Improve Quality of and Access to Health Care for Iraqi Refugees in Jordan 

The United States should implement a two-sided funding plan focused on both a long-term build-up of the Jordanian 

health care system and a short-term emergency response. 

IGL Calendars: Beyond Borders 

The 2009 and 2010 calendars once again featured the work of EXPOSURE’s and IGL’s students and alumni from projects 

all over the world. The 2009 calendar features photos from Bolivia, Cambodia, China, India, Kenya, Lebanon, 

Norway, Pakistan, Uganda, and the US. The 2010 calendar features photos from Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Kashmir, 

Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Uganda, the US, and Venezuela. 

Captions from the 2010 calendar: 

Matthew Edmundson \ Tufts’05, EPIIC’04, EXPOSURE’04-’05 \ India, 2006 \ A fisherman crosses Dal Lake near the 

summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, Srinagar. Kashmir has been contested in two wars between India 


and Pakistan since the 1947 partition of colonial India. In the past several years, tourism has increased in Srinagar, 

renown for its abundant gardens, but some small-scale skirmishes between Indian and Pakistani forces continue. 

Jacob Silberberg \ TUFTS’02, EPIIC’01, 

TILIP’02 \ Haiti, 2008 \ A man selling flavored 

ice from a cart that reads “God is 

the creator of the world,” in Cite Soleil, a 

shanty town in Port-au-Prince, the capital 

of Haiti. Haiti, the poorest country in the 

western hemisphere, is wracked by political 

violence and food insecurity (left). 

Samuel James \ TUFTS’09, SYNAPTIC 

SCHOLARS ’06-’09, EXPOSURE’06-’09, 

EPIIC’08 \ Uganda, 2008 \ Acholi village 

elders dance around a ceremonial fire, 

celebrating their deceased brother’s successful 

transition back into the earth. Taken during the EXPOSURE-Aftermath Photojournalism Workshop in northern 

Uganda in August 2008. 

David Mou \ TUFTS’10, EPIIC’07, NIMEP’07-’09, TEF’07-’09 \ Syria, 2008 \ In the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, 

the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 350 on the 31st of May 1974, creating the United Nations 

Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) to maintain the area of separation negotiated by the United States between 

Israeli and Syrian forces. The UNDOF forces have maintained Outpost 60A in the Golan Heights ever since and have 

supervised the areas of separation and continued ceasefire and disengagement between Syria and Israel. Taken during 

the IGL’s New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP) fact-finding trip to Syria in 2008. 

Tim Fitzsimons \ TUFTS’10, EXPOSURE’06-’09, EPIIC’08 \ USA, 2006 \ Protesters march down Broadway in New York City 

on May 1, 2006. “El día sin inmigrantes,” or “The day without immigrants,” was a nationwide general strike to protest 

in support of increased rights for immigrants in the United States. The protests, coordinated in cities across the US, 

brought more then one million people to the streets. In New York City, a quarter of a million people were estimated 

to have participated. 

Helaina Stein \ TUFTS’10, EPIIC’08, RESPE’08-’09 \ Uganda, 2008 \ Sudanese refugee girls play a game of basketball in 

Kyangwali, a refugee settlement in Western Uganda. Kyangwali is home to about 5,700 of the total 500,000 Southern 

Sudanese displaced from Sudan’s protracted civil war. As of March 2009, about 300,000 Sudanese refugees have been 

successfully repatriated from settlements in Uganda and other neighboring countries. 

Molly Whittington \ TUFTS’05, EPIIC’05, EXPOSURE’05 \ Indonesia, 2005 \ Young girls take part in the celebration of 

“Piodalan Saraswati” or Saraswati Day, a Hindu ceremony devoted to the Goddess of learning, science and literature. 

Saraswati rules the intellectual and creative realm, and is the patron saint of libraries and schools. This ceremony 

is on the beach near the village of Canggu, which is on the southwest side of the island of Bali. Taken during a VII 

Photography Workshop in Bali, Indonesia in June 2005. 

134 


Laura Gilbert \ TUFTS’11, EXPOSURE’07-’09 \ Cambodia, 2008 \ Young boys play outside a temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia, 

while a young boy studies in a window frame. The Buddhist monasteries in Cambodia help provide education 

for much of the local population. Taken as part of the EXPOSURE-VII Photojournalism Workshop in Cambodia in June 

2008. 

Matthew Edmundson \ Tufts’05, EPIIC’04, EXPOSURE’04-’05 \ Kenya, 2004 \ In Kakuma refugee camp (population 

45,000), in northwestern Kenya, basic English and math classes are held daily in open air, mud-brick huts with leaky 

tin roofs. Resources are extremely limited - working pens and paper are especially rare. Since the signing of a peace 

accord in 2005, many Southern Sudanese who lived in Kakuma have returned home. In the past five years, approximately 

13,000 of the Somali Bantu refugees at Kakuma - unable to return home to war-torn Somalia - were resettled 

throughout the U.S. Taken as part of an EPIIC Research Trip in March 2004. 

Jacob Silberberg \ TUFTS’02, EPIIC’01, TILIP’02 \ Nigeria, 2007 \ Osodi Market was one of the principal markets in 

Lagos, Nigeria. The market was dismantled in January of 2009 by the state’s new governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, 

as part of his effort to bring order to the chaotic mega-city. Though thousands of makeshift shops and concrete block 

homes were destroyed and people displaced to make room for wider roads and smoother traffic, sentiments among 

Lagosians are generally positive toward the young politician. 

Nichole Sobecki \ TUFTS’08, EXPOSURE’05-’08, EPIIC’06 \ Pakistan, 2008 \ Trash burns in the Liari district of Karachi, 

where supporters of Benazir Bhutto had 

taken to the streets in protest following 

her assassination in December 2007 (left). 

Jacob Silberberg \ TUFTS’02, EPIIC’01, TIL- 

IP’02 \ Venezuela, 2006 \ A boy flies a kite 

from the roof of a slum in Caracas, Venezuela. 

Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo 

Chavez, draws much of his support from 

the urban poor who he courts through 

populist rhetoric and social programs, 

including health clinics and subsidized 

supermarkets. 


COLLABORATIONS 

Project on Justice in Times of Transition 

As the 2008 – 2009 academic year began, the strategic partnership between the Project on Justice in Times of Transition 

and the Institute of Global Leadership at Tufts University proved to be yet again a unique opportunity to develop 

new and exciting programming for both respective organizations. 

The main focus of PJTT this year was developing several new thematic and country programs and improving communications 

capacity through new media technologies. Several of these efforts benefited from our association with 

Tufts and the IGL, and PJTT plans to continue to engage both students and faculty in these initiatives as they are 

developed further. 

Thematic Programming 

The core of the PJTT/IGL collaboration this year took the form of a class, which 

was offered at Tufts University during the winter semester and sponsored 

by PJTT, the IGL, the Experimental College and the Peace and Justice Studies 

Program. The class, entitled “The Role of Leadership and Change in Conflict 

Transformation: Durable Peace, Fragile Peace, Intractable Conflict,” was cotaught 

by Bruce Hitchner of Tufts University, Tim Phillips of PJTT, and Ina 

Breuer of PJTT. One goal of the class was to expose Tufts students (undergraduates 

and Fletcher students) to negotiators and leaders of conflict resolution 

efforts around the world and to give students a better sense of how these complex 

issues are addressed by practitioners versus academics and the academic 

literature that defines conflict resolution debate at universities. 

The thematic objective of the class was to examine, with our guest lectures, 

why conflict resolution has not been more successful in realizing sustainable 

peace. Students considered in particular the role leaders play in different 

stages of conflict (durable, fragile, intractable) and the role that character can 

play in shaping the outcome and direction of negotiations. Students of the 

class had unrivaled access to leading individuals on the world stage. Our featured visitors 

included: 

• Paul Arthur, Professor, University of Ulster 

• Nick Burns, former US Secretary of State for Political Affairs (top right photo) 

• Naomi Chazan, former Deputy Speaker, Israeli Knesset (middle right photo) 

• Arturo Cruz, Nicaraguan Ambassador to the US 

• Donna Hicks, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard 

University 

• Ram Manikkalingam, former advisor to the President of Sri Lanka 

on the Peace Process, and currently the Director of the Dialogue Advisory Group (bottom right photo) 

• Peter Neumann, Director, Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence, Kings College 

136 


• Sead Numanovic, Editor in Chief, Dnevi Avaz, Kosovo 

• José Ramos Horta, President of East Timor and 1996 Nobel Peace 

Prize winner 

• Veton Surroi, Head of KOHA Publishing House and former member 

of the Kosovar Unity Team (right photo) 

• Jan Urban, Professor, NYU in Prague and former Czech dissident 

• Howard Wolpe, Director, Africa Program and Project Leadership 

and Building State Capacity, Woodrow Wilson International Center for 

Scholars 

For their final papers, students prepared a memo to the Obama administration outlining priorities and recommendations 

for improved conflict resolution practice. 

The Role of Leadership and Change in Conflict Transformation class offered several opportunities to communities 

beyond the class of students enrolled in it. Each session of the class was podcast to over 1,000 people in the conflict 

resolution field world wide, and the Project received significant positive feedback from individuals in organizations 

working on these issues. We also held several special events featuring our visitors and offered opportunities for Tufts 

faculty and individuals in the broader Boston community to interact with them. In particular, PJTT and IGL held a 

joint fundraiser during the visit of President Ramos Horta of East Timor, which was very well attended. Several of our 

guests also visited GlobalPost, a contact facilitated by the IGL. Finally, a student of the IGL who participated in our 

class, Austin Siadak, is currently helping PJTT to edit the 11 feature sessions of the class into a publication on conflict 

resolution practice. 

A second thematic initiative being developed by the Project during this academic year is a documentary and educational 

website entitled Talking with the Enemy. This initiative seeks to present and explore a range of cases where U.S. 

and/or international leaders challenged deep-seated opposition and entrenched beliefs in order to initiate dialogue 

with former enemies and bring about a paradigm shift in relations with them. Both the documentary and the website 

will take a closer look at the challenges that these processes present to individual leaders and focus on the human 

stories around these efforts. During the last academic year, PJTT engaged a number of Tufts faculty and students to 

help think about the focus of the website component in particular. PJTT also began to develop actual content for the 

documentary and website by interviewing several of the guest speakers that came for the class, among them: Veton 

Surroi, Ram Manikkalingam, Naomi Chazan, and Jose Ramos Horta. 

Country Programming 

PJTT’s in country efforts this year have been focused on Central America, Bosnia, Kosovo, Cuba and Iran. After a 

successful launch of the Lideres del Presente/Leaders of the Present Youth Network in Antigua, Guatemala in May of 

2008, the Project developed a Mini Grants Program to support the continued efforts of network members. The key 

characteristic is that these activities offer youth network members a way to improve their societies through personal 

initiatives. 

The first funded mini-grants program was held in Costa Rica from March 28, 2009 to April 4, 2009. Network member 

Jose Aguilar Berrocal designed a project titled, Mi Cole, Mi Futuro, Mi Region/My School, My Future, My Region. With 

his organization, Fundación Acción Joven (FAJ) in San Jose, the project aimed to give marginalized youth the tools and 


support so that they themselves can address the challenges facing their school and community. Seven members of the 

Lideres del Presente (from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala) network served as coordinators and program 

leaders. Of those seven, four were former or present IGL students: Mauricio Artinano, Adam Levy, Diego Villalobos, 

and Sasha deBaussette. The Project plans to sponsor additional activities of this sort, hopefully in coordination with 

IGL students and possibly in partnership with the IGL Build program. 

The Project has been working in the Balkans since 2003 and is currently working on developing programming for 

political leaders in Kosovo that helps address the central problem of the region, relations between Serbia and Kosovo. 

PJTT has also been invited by the Dayton Peace Accords Project to collaborate on a new initiative that seeks to generate 

a sustained dialogue among NGOs in the different sectors of Bosnia on issues relating to the constitutional process. 

The goal is to create broader recognition among NGOs and the public of the issues and needs that unite different 

sectors of Bosnia. 

PJTT’s newest country efforts are focused on changing relations between the US and Cuba as well as the US and Iran. 

These initiatives are still very much in development. 

Fundraisers 

The Project held two joint fundraisers with the IGL during this academic 

year. These included an event held at the home of Malcolm and Carolyn 

Seely Wiener in New York City. IGL alumni and PJTT friends were invited 

to spend an evening with Roelf Meyer, Chief Negotiator for F.W. De Klerk 

during the talks which led to the end of Apartheid in South Africa and 

Jose Maria Argueta, President of the Institute for Central American Strategic 

Studies, former Ambassador to Peru and Japan and former National 

Security Advisor, Guatemala. The discussion was moderated by Tufts Provost 

Jamshed Bharucha. The second event was the dinner with President 

Ramos Horta of East Timor. Both events offered PJTT and the IGL an opportunity to engage and inform prospective 

funders of our strategic partnership. 

Conclusion 

The strategic partnership between the IGL and PJTT continues to bear fruitful results. PJTT benefits from the students 

and faculty at the IGL and Tufts, while IGL gains access to practitioners and leaders that play a significant role in shaping 

conflict resolution practice. The organizations have a number of goals for the next year, which include co-hosting 

Ambassador William Luers as an INSPIRE fellow. He will be teaching a class on American Diplomacy and the History 

of US engagement with adversaries, drawing on his experiences with Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, and Iran. This class will 

directly feed into PJTT’s Talking with the Enemy Initiative and offer Tufts/IGL students a unique opportunity to learn 

from one of US’s leading diplomats. 

COST-US Workshop 

In September, the IGL hosted a small, high-level workshop: Consultation on Sustainability and Transparency in the 

United States (COST-US). Organized through the IGL’s Boryana Damyanova Corporate Social Responsibility and EM- 

138 


POWER programs, and with the support of the Boston College Institute for Responsible Investment, this conversation 

gathered more than 20 leaders to discuss two key questions: 

What is the relationship between measurable progress on sustainability and corporate disclosure in the United States 

over the next five to ten years? 

What role should US organizations, particularly investors, play in advancing the quality and acceptance of the Global 

Reporting Initiative, which is currently seen as the de facto standard and whose adoption has proceeded at a blistering 

rate around the world but has lagged, in relative terms, in the United States? 

The discussions were chaired by Dr. Robert Kinloch Massie, 

the former executive director of Ceres, co-founder of the 

Global Reporting Initiative, and originator of the Investor 

Network on Climate Risk. He is also the recipient of the 

inaugural Boryana Damyanova Corporate Social Responsibility 

Award. 

In framing the conversation, the workshop drew on the 

thoughtful analysis and long-standing leadership of many 

parties including recent work done by KLD, ICCR, SIF, GDAE, SIRAN, GRI, BSR, the Global Compact, RiskMetrics, GEMI, 

the Tellus Institute, Ceres, EAI and others. 

The participants included Rob Berridge, Program Manager, Investor Programs, CERES; Mark Cohen, Justin Potter Professor 

of American Competitive Enterprise, Vanderbilt University and Vice President of Research, Resources for the 

Future; Stu Dalheim, Director Shareholder Advocacy, Calvert Investments; Peter Desimone, Head of Labor and Human 

Rights Research, RiskMetrics; Robert G. Eccles, Senior Lecturer in Business Administration, Harvard Business School; 

Paul Freundlich, Chair, Organization Stakeholder Council, Global Reporting Initiative; Anne Kelly, Director of Governance 

Programs, CERES; Michael Krzus, Partner, Grant Thornton, LLP; Leslie Lowe, Director, Program on Energy and 

the Environment, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; Steve Lydenberg, Chief Investment Officer, Domini 

Social Investments; Robert A. G. Monks, Founder and Deputy Chairman, Hermes Lens Asset Management LLC; Marcy 

Murninghan, INSPIRE Fellow, Institute for Global Leadership, and Senior Advisor, COST-US; Daniel Nielsen, Director Socially 

Responsible Investing, Christian Brothers Investment Service; Leontine Plugge, SME and Supply Chain Program 

Manager, Global Reporting Initiative; Gavin Power, Senior Advisor, United Nations – Principles of Responsible Investing; 

Cheryl Smith, Chair, Social Investment Forum, Trillium Asset Management; Timothy Smith, Director Socially Responsible 

Investing, Walden Asset Management, Immediate Past Chair, Social Investment Forum; Sherman Teichman, 

Director, Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University; Joe Uehlein, Former Director Strategic Campaigns, AFL–CIO; 

Judith Weiss, Senior Advisor, COST-US; Allen White, Vice President and Director of Corporate Redesign Program, The 

Tellus Institute, and Co-founder and Interim Executive Director, Global Reporting Initiative; and David Wood, Director, 

Institute for Responsible Investment, Boston College. 

Students from Arts and Sciences and from The Fletcher School attended and staffed the workshop. 


New Initiatives 

GlobalPost 

The headlines read: “Turkey Offers the US a Path Out of Iraq,” “Dominican Dreams: El Barrio to the Big Leagues,” 

and “The Other Side of an Aegean Wonderland.” They represent articles found on the web site of GlobalPost, a new 

Boston web-based global news service which now has a special collaboration with the Institute for Global Leadership. 

The above headlines represent some of the stories by IGL alumni, Casey Beck, Trevor Howard, and Nichole Sobecki. 

Charles Sennot (right), the Vice President and Executive Editorial Editor 

of Global News, describes the new organization, “At GlobalPost.com, we 

believe passionately that we as a country need to know more about the 

world. We believe the challenges we face are global, whether we are talking 

about climate change or the economic crisis or terrorism. Therefore, 

finding solutions will require global understanding. That’s why we have 65 

foreign correspondents in 45 countries trying to provide the reporting that 

will bring deeper understanding of all of these complex issues and realities 

out there in the world.” 

He continued, “We feel connected to the IGL and its spirit of learning. We have found that the IGL students are on fire 

with a passion to learn about the world and we hope to harness some of that energy for strong journalism projects 

here at GlobalPost. There are at least three IGL graduates already working for us in the field and a host of interns 

coming on board this summer.” 

The special collaboration will sponsor student internships and research. With expert mentorship from the seasoned 

journalists and professionals at GlobalPost, students will gain insight into international reporting, with opportunities 

to contribute to GlobalPost.com. Interns will work in Boston during the summer of 2009 to support the network of 

foreign correspondents that GlobalPost has created around the world and to assist with research on special projects. 

Students conducting research and traveling this summer will also be submitting stories for GlobalPost. 

This relationship was established with the co-directors and co-founders of GlobalPost, Philip Balboni and Charlie 

Sennott. 

Mr. Balboni is the President and Chief Executive Officer of GlobalPost. Previously, he was the President of New England 

Cable News (NECN) for 16 years. As NECN’s Founder, Mr. Balboni conceptualized the network, developed its business 

plan, and negotiated the joint venture between owners Hearst Corp. and Continental Cablevision, now Comcast. 

After initially serving as a Director and as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. Balboni became President and Chief 

Executive Officer in 1994. 

Previously, Mr. Balboni served as Special Assistant for New Projects to the Chief Executive Officer of the Hearst Corp., 

with responsibility for technology assessment, strategy, and government relations. During this period, Mr. Balboni 

was instrumental in founding the News in the Future Consortium at the MIT Media Lab and served as a member of its 

Executive Board for five years, joining representatives from 20 other media and telecommunications companies from 

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the United States, Europe, and Latin America. At WCVB-TV, the ABC-affiliated television station in Boston that the New 

York Times once called “perhaps the finest television station in America,” Mr. Balboni held several key management 

positions, including eight years as Vice President and News Director. 

Mr. Balboni has written, “I cannot wait to start working with your amazing students.” 

Mr. Sennott has a long-standing relationship with the Institute dating back to 1996, when EPIIC students researched 

for his Boston Globe series, “Armed for Profit,” for which he won the Livingston Award for National Reporting, the 

Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and a National Headliner Award for Investigative Reporting. Through 

nearly 25 years as a reporter and on-air analyst, he has been on the front lines of wars and insurgencies in 15 countries, 

from the jungles of Colombia to the deserts of Iraq. He has covered a wide range of stories from the papal 

transition in Rome to the oil industry in Saudi Arabia. A longtime foreign correspondent for The Boston Globe, Sennott 

served as the Globe’s Middle East Bureau Chief based in Jerusalem from 1997 to 2001 and as Europe Bureau Chief 

based in London from 2001 to 2005. 

Southern Sudan Initiative 

In an extraordinary individual effort, junior Sabina Carlson 

(right), the National Education Coordinator of STAND: The 

Student-led Division of Genocide Intervention Network and 

the initiator of the IGL’s RESPE Haiti project, has taken her 

dedication to Southern Sudan. This spring, she took a leave 

of absence from Tufts to work with the Crop Training Center, 

in Yei, Southern Sudan, in the Training for Sustainable Development 

initiative of the UNHCR. 

While in Sudan, Sabina assisted the United Nations High 

Commissioner (UNHCR) office in Yei to implement agricultural 

activities in the Lasu Refugee Settlement. The Lasu 

Refugee Settlement accommodates more than 6,000 refugees form the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who 

fled to the southern Sudan after their homes were attacked by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group. 

Sabina’s specific activities were: 

• initiated, arranged, and coordinated the collaboration between key agriculture organizations in Yei and 

UNHCR 

• co-created a proposal to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) that resulted in the allocation 

of 2,000 hoes, machetes, and sickles and necessary crop and vegetable seeds to the refugees 

• coordinated an assessment of the agricultural potential in the camps with the Assistant Commissioner 

of Agriculture for the county and the Senior Agriculture Officer of AAH-I in Yei 

• coordinated the distribution of the 2,000 hoes 

• created a network of extension [contract] workers within the camp 

• conducted bi-weekly extension sessions in the camp 


• helped to establish a working vegetable nursery and demonstration plot 

• introduced community-based extension workers in Lasu o the refugee extension workers 

• coordinated cowpea seed distribution 

• arranged with the chief of Lasu for the donation of over 30 hectares of new land for the refugees to 

begin cereal crop production 

• supervised allocation of new land into plots for cereal crop distribution 

Of her experiences, Sabina wrote, “Again, for all these actions, 

I am fortunate to be a coordinator, a facilitator, and 

still a student. It has been my great learning privilege to 

take the expertise that is on the ground here in the areas 

of agriculture and nutrition and work to coordinate those 

strengths into integrated health and agriculture projects. I 

have had for my professors: farm extension workers, local 

and state (and sometimes national) government officials, 

UNFAO and UNHCR, women’s group organizers, etc.” 

She plans to return to work on several additional projects, 

including the supervising of the clearing of the new land, 

providing nutrition education to the extension workers, 

post-harvest training on nutrient preservation and seed 

preservation, arranging for the beginning of rice farming 

and cassava planting, and arranging for tree planting to reverse 

some of the deforestation associated with opening the 

camp and new farm land. 

Sabina has been supported in this endeavor Humanity United, under the leadership of Pam Omidyar and Randy 

Newcomb, as well as by Empower funds. 

The IGL, over the years, has been able to assist students who take a leave from the University to educate themselves 

and to provide public service in direct, intensive ways. The IGL has worked with such students in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 

Kenya, Nigeria, and Peru. 

An EPIIC student last year took a leave of absence to work on sustainability and water issues in Peru with a Peruvian 

graduate student who had attended EPIIC as part of TILIP. 

Another EPIIC student spent a year away from school in Bosnia working on how outreach from the International 

Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia could be better translated for affected communities. Joined then by 

a recent EPIIC graduate, their research culminated a in a symposium at the University of Sarajevo’s Department of 

Criminology. Their work also became a model of outreach and community education for the trials in Sierra Leone. 

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Scholars at Risk 

In Fall 2008, at the initiative of the Institute for Global Leadership,) Tufts joined the Scholars at Risk (SAR) organization, 

which is an international network of universities and colleges that promotes academic freedom and defends the 

human rights of scholars. 

Through temporary academic positions, SAR members help scholars to escape dangerous conditions and continue to 

work. In return, scholars contribute to their host campuses through teaching, research, lectures and other activities. 

Many scholars return to their home countries after their visits. When safe return is not possible, SAR staff works with 

scholars to identify opportunities to continue their work abroad, such as applying to open faculty positions. 

Associate Provost Vincent Manno serves as the Tufts point of contact for 

SAR. He works with an informal network of people throughout Tufts including IGL Director Sherman Teichman and 

the Executive Director of the Project on Justice In Times of Transition, Ina Breuer, to triage opportunities from SAR for 

possible placements at Tufts or further networking. 

Please see http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/About_Scholars_Risk/ for more information. 


AWARDS AND NEXT STEPS FOR STUDENTS 

Institute Award Recipients 2009 

The Ivan Galantic Special Achievement in Humanities Prize is awarded to a student who has demonstrated the inclination 

and capacity to cultivate an integrative approach to learning; one who reaches for wisdom, not simply 

knowledge. 

Jeffrey R. Beers (EXPOSURE) 

Mie Inouye (SYNAPTICS) 

The Marshall Hochhauser Prize for the Enrichment of Intellectual Life is awarded to students whose efforts have made 

a significant contribution to the educational life of the University, either through work on departmental or student/ 

faculty committees, special projects (journals, clubs, or academic societies), tutoring or assistantship work, or any 

other activities deemed relevant. 

Rachel Bergenfield (SYNAPTICS) 

Padden Murphy (EPIIC, EXPOSURE, SYNAPTICS, ALLIES, DISCOURSE) 

The Prize Scholarship of the Class of 1882 honors an undergraduate student with great potential for intellectual 

leadership and creativity. This prize was founded in the name of his class by Dr. Arthur Winslow Peirce, A’82, Litt.D’99. 

Hannah Flamm (EPIIC, SYNAPTICS, PPRI) 

Laura Fong (EPIIC, SYNAPTICS) 

The Marion Ricker Houston Prize Scholarship in Economics is awarded to junior or senior economics majors that have 

been responsible citizens of the Tufts community and who, in the opinion of the department’s faculty, have made 

substantial progress in mastery of their chosen field. This prize was established in memory of a faculty wife whose 

friendship and gracious hospitality enriched the lives of many generations of Tufts and Jackson students. 

Elizabeth Gross (EPIIC) 

The Lewis F. Manly Memorial Prize is awarded to undergraduates who combine a record of academic excellence with 

superior athletic performance, preferably economics majors. This award was established in 1974 by friends, family, 

and former students in memory of Lewis F. Manly who, in forty years as a member of the Tufts faculty, combined 

a dedicated career as a teacher and athletic coach and whose loyalty, devotion, and service to Tufts were of a high 

order. 

Jessica Herrmann (EPIIC, DISCOURSE, INQUIRY) 

The Charles G. Bluhdorn Prize in Economics is awarded annually to an undergraduate majoring in economics who has 

demonstrated outstanding scholastic ability. This prize was founded in 1983 by Donald Gaston in memory of Charles 

G. Bluhdorn. 

Jessica Herrman (EPIIC, DISCOURSE, INQUIRY) 

Alumni Council Senior Awards 

Jessica Herrmann (EPIIC, DISCOURSE, INQUIRY) 

Allison Schuster (EWB, EPIIC) 

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International Letters and Visual Studies Prize is awarded annually to a graduating senior who has demonstrated excellence 

in the study of literature, film and visual media in an international context 


James Vance Elliot Political Science Prize, awarded for academic achievement, leadership, and active participation in 

campus and civic affairs. 


The Donald A. Cowdery Memorial Scholarship is awarded to juniors or seniors whose academic achievements and 

personal qualities of leadership and high principle have been outstanding. It was established in 1946 by Mrs. Jeanetta 

Wilson Cowdery Black, F’46, as a memorial to her husband, Donald A. Cowdery, A’39, who was an outstanding leader 

on the campus in a variety of activities. Mr. Cowdery was killed in action in World War II. 

Duncan Pickard (SYNAPTICS) 

The Navy V-12/NROTC Memorial Prize was established in 1998 by Tufts V-12/NROTC alumni who were enrolled in 

the program at Tufts during World War II. The prize is to be awarded to junior or senior students from the Tufts undergraduate 

colleges who are direct descendants of participants in the Tufts or other college V-12/NROTC programs 

during World War II, July 1943-June 1946, or are enrolled in an NROTC program. The award is based on scholastic 

achievement, demonstrated leadership, and significant contributions made by the candidates to the university and 

greater community. 

Jesse Sloman (ALLIES, EPIIC) 

Peter Belfer Award in Political Science is given annually for an outstanding piece of written work done in a political 

science course or independently by a political science major. 

Alexandra Taylor (EPIIC, SYNAPTICS, ALLIES) 

Department of Anthropology Prize is awarded annually to a student who has shown excellence in anthropological 

studies. 

Elyse Tyson (TEF) 

Tisch College Active Citizenship Presidential Award 

Nancy Henry (EPIIC, ALLIES, NIMEP) 

Padden Murphy (EPIIC, EXPOSURE, SYNAPTICS, ALLIES, DISCOURSE) 

Morissa Sobelson (SYNAPTICS) 

The Shapiro Award, administered by the American Studies Program, honors the memory of Ted Shapiro, an American 

Studies major, class of ’82, who died in a drowning accident a year after graduating. His parents established this 

award to allow American Studies majors to pursue summer plans during their sophomore or junior year that incorporate 

opportunities for personal and academic growth, and that are not open to them without the support of the 

award. 

Ikenna Acholonu (SYNAPTICS) 

Duncan Pickard (SYNAPTICS) 


The SustainUS Citizen Science Award. After submitting an original scientific research paper to the Citizen Science 

Technical Board for the 2009 Citizen Science paper competition, winners will have their papers published and will 

present their work at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development convening at the United Nations 

Headquarters in May 2009. 

Mara Gittleman (EPIIC) 

Phi Beta Kappa 

Jeffrey Beers (EXPOSURE) 

Laura Fong (EPIIC, SYNAPTICS) 

Elizabeth Gross (EPIIC) 

Jessica Herrmann (EPIIC, DISCOURSE) 


Lauren Kaplan (EPIIC, EMPOWER) 

Mary Langan (EPIIC, BUILD) 

Morissa Sobelson (SYNAPTICS) 

David Suzenski (TEF) 

Chloe Zimmerman (EXPOSURE) 

SAMPLE OF NEXT STEPS FOR STUDENTS 

Graduating Students 

• pursuing an MA in Urban Design at the London School of Economics 

• attending the Medical Scientist Training Program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston next year for 

his MD/PhD 

• working for ACCION International 

• collaborating on a documentary photography and oral history project focusing on corn farmers in the 

Midwest United States and in Mexico 

• working as a TA in the Political Science Department at Tufts 

• interning with the Global Financial Integrity Project and then teaching English at Lishui, Univeristy in 

Lishui, China 

• participating in a yearlong city government fellowship, focusing on public health programming and 

policy, with the New York City Urban Fellows Program 

• working for a small internet software start-up called Visible Measures in Boston 

• serving as Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force 

• serving as a Second Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps 

• beginning a Compton Mentor Fellowship, working with the Council on the Environment of New York City 

on fortifying infrastructure, policy, and planning for a sustainable local food system 

• directing a camp for foster children in rural Mississippi for the month of June, then going to Italy for 

SAIS’s first year Bologna program, concentrating in International Development 

• working as a research assistant at Physicians for Human Rights in Chile 

• working as a Research Associate at the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy 

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• interning at the National Democratic Institute on its Sudan project 

• working for the Center for Transitional Justice 

• working as a Research Fellow at COIN Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan and then pursuing an MA in 

the War Studies Department, King’s College London 

• attending Stanford Law School 

Returning Students 

• interning at a newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina 

• working on Mayor Menino’s re-election campaign and interning for US Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) 

• interning with Congressman Eliot Engel in Washington, DC 

• interning at the National Capital Planning Commission and in Sen. John Kerry’s DC office and then 

traveling to China to conduct research about the use of public space 

• conducting research on drug policy, focusing on the experiences of New York City, Mexico City, and 

Vancouver 

• attending the Latin American Studies Conference in Rio de Janeiro and spending two months studying 

Portuguese intensively to prepare for study abroad 

• attending the Fifth Urban Research Symposium: Cities and Climate Change in Marseilles, France and then 

working on the Honolulu Rapid Transit Project with the group: InfraConsult 

• Interning at the Freeplay Foundation in London this summer through the IGL’s Empower program 

• researching eco-city projects in China 

• attending Tufts in Talloires and then working in Washington, DC for the defense contractor SAIC as part of 

the Tisch College’s Active Citizen Summer 

• spending two months living in Beirut, Lebanon, conducting research and then attending the Summer 

Institute for Intensive Arabic & Culture at the Lebanese American University 

• spending two months in Lebanon interning at AMIDEAST, an American organization that provides English 

language training and educational advising to students in Lebanon 

• taking part in a Meor Israel trip, which is a three-week long trek through Israel consisting of Jewish 

education, sightseeing, and fun activities 

• interning as an event planner at the United Nations Organization of Greater Boston 


STATEMENT ON THE IMPACT OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS ON THE INSTITUTE 

Weathering the Economic Crisis 

The last nine months have witnessed an economic downturn that many experts have labeled as the worst economic 

period since the Great Depression. Despite this pernicious situation, the Institute has weathered the financial tsunami 

of 2008-09 with the ongoing support of Tufts University, the Institute’s External Advisory Board, the students, and the 

IGL’s many friends. 

While the major financial impact for the Institute was in the loss of its endowment income -- as most of its endowments 

all went under water in the fall -- the counter-cyclical giving nature of our Board, or what I have preferred to 

call counter-cynical, helped to ensure the continuity of our programs. 

We have recorded a year of both quality programming and robust fund raising. 

It is especially important to note the maturity and equanimity of this year’s students, who were challenged to reconceptualize 

their plans to varying extents and who met that challenge with fierce determination. 

The EPIIC program committee, after more than 100 hours of meeting and re-conceptualizing this year’s theme of 

Global Cities, produced an excellent symposium making extensive use of local experts. Tufts University President 

Lawrence Bacow, Adele Bacow, and Dr. Barry Bluestone were essential in helping to identify their colleagues in this 

endeavor. We were also able to still maintain the international student participation (TILIP) in EPIIC with the donation 

of frequent flier miles and the largesse of Seoul National University in sponsoring the travel for students from the 

University of Cape Town in South Africa. 

BUILD led the way for the IGL’s student groups, securing the Tufts Davis Foundation 100 Projects for Peace First Prize 

of $10,000 dollars (the second year in a row that an Institute project has been the recipient). BUILD also raised thousands 

of dollars in other external funding, from the Clinton Global Initiative and Pura Vida Coffee and group fund 

raising, including a mustache fraternity party! 

There were many acts of generosity and reciprocity. 

Ted Mayer and his family, with extraordinary generosity, enabled us to continue to bring distinguished award recipients 

to the university. The vision for expanding the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award to encourage its 

recipients to extend and support opportunities for our students has increased, allowing our students to go to Cyprus 

in preparation for our new Solar for Gaza/Sderot project and to continue our Haiti work through Engineers Without 

Borders and RESPE. 

With growing demand on campus for opportunities to explore social entrepreneurship focused on poverty alleviation, 

EMPOWER sponsors Javier Macaya and Angelos Metaxa generously increased the program’s budget by 40 percent. 

Dean James Glaser and the Undergraduate Research Fund also continued its strong support of IGL student research 

initiatives. 

148 


The Merrin Family gift was very important in continuing many of this year’s activities, particularly helping to nurture 

the growing intellectual community of Synaptic Scholars as well as allowing NIMEP to continue its fact-finding missions, 

this year to Israel and the West Bank. 

Gratefully, parents and student family foundations have also made significant donations to sustain EXPOSURE, EPIIC, 

and other programs. 

Under the leadership of the President of the Tufts Community Union Senate (an IGL Synaptic Scholar), the Senate supported 

this year’s EPIIC symposium and the publication of the second volume of Discourse. The Senate’s commitment 

will be ongoing, and we will collaborate on programs such as a transformational leadership seminar lecture series, 

co-sponsored with the Office of the Provost and the Project on Justice in Times of Transition. 

New sources of foundation and organizational funding such as the Compton Foundation’s support for ALLIES and 

GlobalPost’s support for global research helped propel us. The yield of our investment with the Clinton Global Initiative 

became apparent with the generosity of new donors, such as Gregg Steinberg, in supporting projects in Ethiopia 

and underwriting the travel costs of high schools from Chicago for the Inquiry. Arlington Lithographic has also worked 

with us to reduce our printing costs. 

Given the importance of understanding the current financial crisis, the IGL initiated a spring semester course, cosponsored 

by The Fletcher School and the Experimental College, with INSPIRE Fellow James Henry on “The Global Financial 

Crisis: A Seminar in Investigative Economics.” 

With all of this support, the IGL still tightened its belt, cutting more than 20 percent of its programming budget. 

Insights, the NIMEP journal, was published online. EXPOSURE ran a Boston-based photojournalism workshop during 

the winter intersession. TILIP did not bring delegations that could not be covered by either frequent flier miles or 

direct sponsorship. Inquiry cut one day of programming. All programs reduced non-essential costs, such as catering. 

We also did not run the Voices from the Field or the National Security and Civil Liberties programs this year. 

While we are optimistic that our work this year puts us in a good position for next year, we do have contingency plans 

to tighten our programming further if required. We know we will create and enact an innovative entrepreneurial 

design, balancing fund raising and cost reduction. 

Sherman Teichman, Director 


BENEFACTORS 

Overwhelmingly, the IGL is supported through the generosity of Tufts University and through its External Advisory 

Board members. 

In supporting the 2008-09 year, the IGL would also like to thank the following for their generous support: 

Edward H. and Vivian Merrin 

Angelica Foundation 

Jo Ann Bendetson 

Bradford Bernstein 

David A. and Deborah R. Boillot 

Lisa BonoCorredor 

Lisa Brukilacchio 

Danielle Carvalho 

Citigroup Private Bank 

Leslie Citrome and Amy Weiss-Citrome 

Matthew Edmundson 

Keith Fitzgerald 

Freedman Family 

Sondra Friedman and Kirk Gregerson 

Global News Enterprises 

Goldman Sachs Foundation 

James and Suzanne Gollin 

Marilyn and Mike Grossman Foundation 

Nancy Grossman and Shoshana Grossman-Crist 

Steven and Barbara Grossman 

Sue K. Harburg 

Amal Surkareh Al-Hillawi 

Andrew, Laura, and Sandra Kaplan 

Sunny Kim 

Randi & John Lapidus 

Kenneth Lefkowitz 

Rachel Leven 

Debra Gold Linick 

Leslie Male A’94P 

Robert and Sloane Ivancich Malecki 

Pierre Maman 

Daniel Mandell 

Margery W. Mayer 

Nancy Maynard 

Pamela Meserve 

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Robert and Gladys Meserve Charitable Trust 

Microsoft Corporation Matching Fund 

Jonathan Mok 

Timothy O’Connor 

Theresa Owen 

Rose Family Trust, Adam White 

Michael and Ellen Sandler 

Gail Schechter 

Elizabeth Schreiber 

Samuel Schwartz 

Jennifer Selendy 

Chris and Patrice Sobecki 

Daniel Sonder 

Gregg Steinberg 

Audrey Tomason 

Robert and Rhonda Zahler 


EXTERNAL ADVISORY BOARD 

Ramin Arani A’92  

Abbas Bayat  

Robert Bendetson A’73  

Frederic Berger E’69  

Jeff Blum 

Andrew M. Cable  

Gerald Chan  

Elyse Cherry  

Frederick H. Chicos  

David Cuttino  

David Dapice, Tufts Faculty Representative 

Edward L. DeMore  

Juan Enriquez  

Obiageli Ezekwesili  

Hunter Farnham  

Howard M. Finkelstein  

Neva Goodwin  

Frederick Harburg A’06P 

Jaafar Hillawi 

Uwe Kitzinger, CBE  

Abner Kurtin A’89  

Kent Lucken  

Wendy Luers 

Javier Macaya A’91  

Bruce Male A’63, A’94P 

Theodore Mayer  

William Meserve A’62, A91P, A92P, J95P, A02P  

Angelos Metaxa A’91 

Ambassador Jonathan Moore  

Mark Munger  

Moisés Naím  

Timothy Phillips  

David Puth A’79  

Andrew Safran A’76, F’77  

Scott Schuster A’79  

Ambassador John Shattuck  

Jane J. Sheng 

Manuel Stefanakis 

Philippe Villers 

Richard Wayne A’05P 

Kevin Zhang 

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Sherman Teichman, Director 

Heather Barry, Associate Director 

Janelle Smart Fisher, Institute Administrator 

Matt Mercier, Multimedia Coordinator and Web Designer 

Susannah Hamblin, Program Coordinator 

Hannah Flamm, Program Assistant 

Wesley Hirsch, Media Assistant 

• • • 

96 Packard Avenue 

Medford, MA 02155 

617.627.3314 

617.627.3940 (f) 

www.tuftsgloballeadership.org 

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2008-09 Annual Report - Institute for Global Leadership

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